Transcribed by Amrtavani
Links
Youtube: https://youtu.be/iNFlPzQSYr0
(The audio cuts off before the end. Listen to the audio recording for the full class)
Audio: Listen to the class
Verse
ya ādyo bhagavān puṁsām
īśvaro vai bhavān kila
lokasya tamasāndhasya
cakṣuḥ sūrya ivoditaḥ
Word for Word translation
yaḥ — He who; ādyaḥ — the origin; bhagavān — the Supreme Personality of Godhead; puṁsām — of all living entities; īśvaraḥ — the Lord; vai — in fact; bhavān — You; kila — indeed; lokasya — of the universe; tamasā — by the darkness of ignorance; andhasya — blinded; cakṣuḥ — eye; sūryaḥ — the sun; iva — like; uditaḥ — risen.
Translation
You are the Supreme Personality of Godhead, the origin and Supreme Lord of all living entities. You have arisen to disseminate the rays of the sun in order to dissipate the darkness of the ignorance of the universe.
Purport
Kapila Muni is accepted as an incarnation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa. Here the word ādyaḥ means “the origin of all living entities,” and puṁsām īśvaraḥ means “the Lord (īśvara) of the living entities” (īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ). Kapila Muni is the direct expansion of Kṛṣṇa, who is the sun of spiritual knowledge. As the sun dissipates the darkness of the universe, so when the light of the Supreme Personality of Godhead comes down it at once dissipates the darkness of māyā. We have our eyes, but without the light of the sun our eyes are of no value. Similarly, without the light of the Supreme Lord, or without the divine grace of the spiritual master, one cannot see things as they are.
Discussion
So, in the last sentence of the purport it says, We have our eyes, but without the light of the sun our eyes are of no value. Similarly, without the light of the Supreme Lord, or without the divine grace of the spiritual master, one cannot see things as they are. So, in line with the prayer, om agyana timirandasya guyana jana shalakaya caksur unmilitam yena, tasme sri guruve namah, that we were in the deepest, darkest dense ignorance but by the mercy of the spiritual master , we have been uplifted from that ignorance and as long as we are under the protection of the order of our spiritual master, we are under the protection of Krishna because ‘saksad dharitvena samasta shastair , uktas tatha bhavyata eva sadbhih, the revealed scriptures are pointing out that the spiritual master is the representative of Krishna and that means not only that the spiritual master is representing the conclusions of the scriptures by explaining these scriptures but it also means that by acting on the order of the spiritual master , that one will realise the conclusions of the scriptures, that qualities begin to develop within us. It;’s not just a matter of theoretical knowledge.
In the czech Republic , we were discussing the verse
vāsudeva-parā vedā
vāsudeva-parā makhāḥ
vāsudeva-parā yogā
vāsudeva-parāḥ kriyāḥ
vāsudeva-paraṁ jñānaṁ
vāsudeva-paraṁ tapaḥ
vāsudeva-paro dharmo
vāsudeva-parā gatiḥ (SB 1.28-29)
So, vasudeva param jnanam was explained that all the good qualities develop in the devotee, then in the 13th chapter of Bhagavad Gita, there a list which begins with amānitvam adambhitvam (BG 13.8), there is a long list of qualities that are the result of the devotional service , one becomes prideless, one becomes very tolerant , amanina manadena , more tolerant than a tree, more humble than the blade of grass, so this is the idea. We see these qualities in Rupa and Sanatana Goswami , they are the principal acharya of our line, we are described to be rupanugas, we are described to be the followers of Rupa Goswami because never before had transcendental knowledge been presented as it is now being presented by Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. The Supreme personality of Godhead, when he comes as a link, in the sampradaya. Sampradaya begins with Krishna, then Brahma, and we are known as the Brahma Madhav Gaudiya Sampradaya. We are the line that comes from Krishna, then comes to Lord Brahma, then comes to Madhavacharya, then through the Gaudiyas. But when there is Gaudiya connection, then we see that Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu reveals the transcendental knowledge on a level where it wasn’t revealed before and we see that the qualities that manifest in the devotees of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu are just extraordinary. It is said where renunciation is found, like where is transcendental knowledge, where are all the transcendental qualities found other than the followers of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu because the sankirtan mission is the most potent . the most potent means of overcoming material desires and overcoming the illusory energy.
Bhagavad Gita says,
daivī hy eṣā guṇa-mayī
mama māyā duratyayā
mām eva ye prapadyante
māyām etāṁ taranti te (BG 7.14)
That this divine energy of Mine is Maya, can be overcome by taking shelter of Me, but now the supreme Lord is engaging us, now the Supreme Lord is empowering us, now the Supreme Lord is somehow or other making us dance. Srila Prabhupada was in New York and he saw the overpowering influence of maya. New York can be called the capital of maya in the world, that’s what it is. And there in New York city, because any type of maya that you could have possibly desired , they have it, the dark corner of your mind where you don’t want to go, there is a similar dark corner in New York, where you also don’t want to go, like that. And of course , not only in New York, darkness or sinful actions or sinful reactions are found all across the planet, everywhere, we don’t have to travel far, that sinfulness is very much available here. But by the mercy of Lord Chaitanya, we find engagement for the restless mind , there is no prior qualification.
We see , in India that there is a custom that those who are not qualified cannot enter the temples, in many temples they have these strict rules. Are you a hindu by birth, no , you cannot enter, Shudras can only stand at a certain place, they cannot actually in the santhamsanthoram which means in the holiest of holy places , no, fallen wretch stay outside , you right, don’t let your shadow even touch us because it is said in Manu samhita, as a brahmana, before you can study shastra you have to fast, it’s not easy thing, everytime before you study, you have to fast. So, yes, then you fast it, and then some shudra comes and if you see the shudra , you have to fast again. So, you don’t want any shudras to come around , you know, I mean. So, at one point they even went so far, of course shudras are needed to do some cleaning and something in the brahminical areas and if a shudra would come, the shudra would have to ring a bell so that all the brahmanas could quickly go into the house , lock the doors and the windows so they wouldn’t be seen and then the shudra could do his thing, this is smartha brahmana, this is those who are overly attached to the rules and regulations of smriti and who do not understand the principle of empowerment , they are simply looking at karma and they are judging by karma. So according to karma , we are all in different positions and therefore according to karma, once you have a certain karma, that’s it, that’s how they think and therefore they claim that brahminical status by birth because karma is ruling, that is the principle but they don’t understand that there is the empowerment of devotional service. Devotional service transforms, devotional service lifts us up , devotional service can completely change a person and it does.
sarvamahan guna gan vaishnava sharire
krishna gan sakhila sanchar
It is said that all the great qualities of Krishna will manifest in the devotee, that’s understandable. If you serve someone, you also become like that person. Serve Hiranyakashipu , then after a while you will also become a little on the demoniac side , it is logical because Hiranyakashipu is always there to punish so then you also punish. We saw, ‘hey , you foolish boys Krishna and Balarama, you desire these clothes , dear washerman, please give us some silks. Do you desire these clothes? These are the clothes of the emperor, you better be careful, he’ll be very upset with you, that was the end of the washerman. Krishna and Balarama were in a merciful mood and they immediately delivered him from material existence and gave the blessing of being killed by the supreme lord which makes everything auspicious. Whatever the Lord does, whether krishna mare Krishna rakhe ke, krishna rakhe , mare ke, whether He kills us or whether He saves us , it’s anyways auspicious, whatever the Lord does so in this way we are appreciating but what i am talking about is empowerment . When we become empowered, empowerment means that people should not judge us by our karma and we should also not judge ourselves by our karma . when you are a small child , you just make noises but you don’t know exactly what you are doing , have no real philosophy behind it, you just make the noise but as we are growing up, we are making noise according to a conscious state of mind we begin to position ourselves . A child just crawls here and there and wherever it winds up it encounters something and gets excited about it but when you are older, you still get excited about things but you crawl in certain directions, somethings you want and somethings you don’t want, we position ourselves, not only are we crawling in the direction of attractive things but we position ourselves in such a way that the attractive things are likely to land in our corner. That means we become opportunists, we calculate the opportunity and the position ourselves accordingly. But of course when we are positioning ourselves, we consider our psycho physical nature even in devotional service. I should be engaged according to my psycho physical nature, I mean but that is not relating to our true identity, that is only resting to the temporary identity that we have now attained due to karma, due to so many lives, here we are and we have a temporary identity according to karma . but that may have nothing to do with our eternal identity. I sometimes make the point that the rough truck driver with tattoos and all walking around like a heavy dude , that in his swarup he might be a gopi, you never know, that’s possible. So, it’s not necessary that the
qualities we have attained by our karma , that they relate to our true identity, are temporary assumed identities.
An identity that’s laid over our original identity, it’s a covering and that covering of karma is what creates the false ego. We identify with it, this is who I am and so with this false identification we are having a distance between us and Krishna and there is the false ego like a wall between us and Krishna. So, this wall of false ego keeps a distance between us and krishna. In other words, our identification with the temporary identity is only creating distance so if we walk around i am a brahmana, i am a brahmana, i am a brahmana , then we are actually building a brahminical wall between ourselves and Krishna.
I am a truck driver , we park our truck between us and Krishna. I am a guitar player, we make a wall of sound. Yesterday I gave the example of playing electric guitar in the material world and we don’t need to be attached to it because in the spiritual world there is something better. But Bhakti Vaibhav maharaj says that with an electric guitar, you can do many things with it, you can play very clean sound, you can play distorted sounds, you have a wow pedal. Maharaj got into it, I mean it sounded like he had some experience , he knew about guitar play and Maharaj said, and in the spiritual world all you get is a tambura, you know, which is only 4 strings.
But, no, what we get in the spiritual world is better than anything we get here, which is inconceivable. I mean , this is basically the pastime of Dhruv Maharaj who established the evidence for that and we have to have that faith, therefore one has to be ready to let go how to give up false ego, oh my god, false ego and what do you do when false ego kicks in, false ego, false ego , it seems to be something hard to catch. I have seen people walking around with a phone trying to catch a pokemon, right, but, i tell you it is more difficult to catch false ego than to catch a pokemon, really. I mean, there is no app for that, right, you try and catch your false ego, it’s here, it’s there, it’s everywhere. I thought I was acting in pure devotional service , now a few years later, I realize I was only motivated by the false ego, confessions on the spiritual path, I just published the book like this , alright, no , that was a joke. In case people start saying, where is that book?It was a joke. The point is that false ego seems to be something like very complex and very eaterial but its not so complex, that false ego is right there where our material desires are as simple as that, we know where our material desires are, is that so difficult to figure that out. Oh, where is my false ego, where is my false ego, the subtle influence of the false ego, yes, it’s pretty gross actually, it’s right there where our gross material desires are, that’s where it is. And as we are giving up these material desires, and we start to serve Krishna, then, false ego dissolves.
Srila Prabhupada is speaking about the chanting of hare krishna and he says that the chanting of Hare krishna immediately changes a person, immediately and then you might ask, how, i don’t see that.I see some people chant for years and haven’t changed much, they are still pretty, some don’t seem to change at all, so, what to do. But Srila Prabhupada said, no, you chant Hare Krishna once and you changed . Sometimes we do the experiment, I go like , everybody look,Hare Krishna, have I changed any volunteers, have I changed, did you notice anything? What did you notice? Smiling, yeah yeah, yeah , but I not only smile when I chant hare Krishna. I also smile over other things. I make jokes, this and that so is smiling necessarily connected to Krishna consciousness or do I also smile at maya, yeah, so I am not so sure that smiling is really the change. What Srila Prabhupada is saying, the change is that the subtle body dissolves, it dissolves, Hare Krishna , a bit of my subtle body just dissolved, it disappeared. Hare Krishna, what happens, false ego is just going, Krishna Krishna, Oh my god, the whole chunk of my false ego just fell off, hare hare, like the false ego disappeared, the mind also disappeared. But what do you do if your mind disappears, don’t mind when your mind disappears because you cannot mind any longer because your mind has disappeared. What will you do? Don’t worry, thinking, feeling and willing which are described as the functions of the mind are not the functions of the mind, mind has stolen these functions but these functions actually belong to the soul. Thinking , feeling and willing are the qualities of the soul. In the spiritual world there is no mind, nobody minds, it’s like this is the world of mind , right, tell me about mind but in the spiritual world there is no mind, all these qualities are simply the soul because there is no separate body in the spiritual world, there is no subtle body. All the qualities belong to the soul, intelligence, a quality of the soul, mind, a quality of the soul, identity a quality of the soul and these are not separated from the self.
Here, you know, you are not your body, you are not your body, you are not your body. Yes, I am not my body, thank god that I am not my body that helps, meanwhile I have got it but we are learning to see ourselves separate from the body and to look at this whole physical existence like a spectator. This is what we learn and the mind also. Mind is described as sapatni, cowife. Co-wives are not so common in this modern society so if i take the liberty to compare the mind to a child and you have this child and the child constantly wants attention, all the time. So the mind is like a child, living with a child , and a child wants something all the time, goes here and there, totally restless,you have to pacify the mind, ok, ok, now if you are quiet , then after the class, you can have some extra sweets, ok, ok, that sounds like a good argument, says the mind. I’ll be quiet, I’ll be well behaved. Anyway , we have to engage our mind so empowerment means that we become freed from all these things that cover us and then the original consciousness begin to manifest and the original quality of sac-cid-ananda of being in an eternal state of consciousness of being full of knowledge and full of bliss that these things are manifesting in us more and more.
So, this is what is happening when the darkness is dissipated. Devahuti who is speaking here was not an ordinary lady at all. Devahuti was the daughter of Swayambhuva Manu. She was like so exalted, so she came from a very culturally exalted family so from her early childhood , she grew up with transcendental knowledge and great example of her father and she might have even inherited some of the qualities of the father, what we call genetics that genetically certain qualities are there.
In the Vedic literature it is described as Amogha Virya. Amogha viraya means that a particular quality remains in a particular family .
So the brahminical families, there is Amogha Viraya, spotless character because of spotless potency because the consciousness of the parents is good at the time of conception. Therefore the child that will be attracted will also have good consciousness. In this way, the purity is actually maintained within the family and so the brahmanical families.
Kshatriyas they were, life after life dedicated to dharma just as we seeYudhishthira Maharaj, wants to know if his grandson, Maharaj Parikshit has the same qualities as his ancestors, right, then the astrologers are calculating and then they say, yes, yes, yes, he is a great devotee, great emperor, kshatriy, he has all the qualities that are in his family lineage so Amogha viraya. So, nowadays we are inclined to see genetics, it is all dictated by the genes. You know, its in your family , there is a certain genetic condition and it carries on and so on but , no, you get the same genetics because you had a similar consciousness, that is the point. It starts with consciousness , it’s not that the situation is dictated by genetics, the genetics are simply the consequences of consciousness. Anyways, so we can transcend the genetics by altering the consciousness, we can rise above the bodily influence , we are not limited by the bodily limitations, right.
If Krishna wants to lift us above, we can be lifted above and He would walk on the water.
There is a Russian story, it’s not so long and since Russia is sort of in the news these days, I thought I may as well tell a Russian story. There was a Bishop, and the Bishop heard that there were 3 sages and they lived on an island. One day, Bishop was traveling by ship and it wasn’t so far from the island, so the Bishop went to the captain and said, “I have a real desire to go to the island and meet these sages. Since this Bishop was a big man, the captain obliged and they anchored not so far from the island, sent a small boat with the Bishop and some assistants and they came to the island. Bishop met the sages and he asked the sages, since they were so spiritual, what have you been praying for? And they had a super simple prayer, something like, ‘My dear God, you are 3 and we are one, please bless us with service, something like that. And the Bishop heard this and he couldn’t believe his ears , you know. We are 3 and you are 1 and please bless us with service, what is this , what kind of speculation is this? This is not bonafide, then he taught them parton #(43:40) something like that whatever they pray something about pray and all that. So, he taught them the prayer but my god he had trained many students in his years but these men were very simple actually, so they couldn’t learn the prayers, so you could see that, hopeless, hopeless, they couldn’t get the prayer so the bishop went away sort of thinking like, well, I mean somehow or other the ordinary people were impressed by them, they got their reputation but he was very disappointed. I thought to meet some great sages today but it wasn’t like it. So, when the ship sailed away from the island and then after a while something appeared on the horizon and then they saw the bishop stood on the deck, others saw it and then they saw it was coming closer and it turned out these were the sages and they were running on the water after the ship and they stood on the water and then the bishop looked at them and they called out, ‘what was that prayer again’? We can’t remember it. The bishop said, ‘ ok, you just keep on praying whatever you pray, it’s fine’. It’s a Russian story , it’s a nice story. It’s the bhakti obviously, it’s not the form although the form is delivered by the supreme lord and is there maintained in the tradition and if we learned to pray in the for, that’s recommended. It is said there are 2 types of prayers, vandanam and there is vigyapti, in the 64 limbs of bhakti, these are mentioned. So, vandanam is reciting the prayers of the acharyas, don’t concoct, learn the prayers of the acharyas and then vigyapti is where we are making personal prayers. So, both elements are there, yes in our tradition but in the beginning it is recommended to just pray the prayers of the acharyas because what will we pray if we pray our own prayers? Ok, what are we going to pray today, what to pray, i mean lets pray to krishna, we cannot offer material prayers also , thise are just the things I wanted to pray for, what am i going to pray for then, well, then I’ll ask for ‘Oh Krishna please give me spiritual strength, oh krishna , please give me many spiritual benedictions so that’s still not the greatest level of praying , some of the acharyas are praying and glorifying the Lord , appreciating the wonderful qualities of the Lord, the wonderful mercy of the Lord, that deep appreciation, that’s another level of prayers. Anyway, so we are following a process of being purified , by following in the footsteps of the acharyas, by following the direction of Krishna and when we become self realized over time, then we can serve Krishna spontaneously from the heart. It is said in this regard that the spiritual master takes us by the hand and brings us to Krishna, that’s the whole process, bringing us to Krishna means bring us to the platform of spontaneous devotional service and he says , now you serve krishna directly from the heart. So, this is how Srila Prabhupada explains it, so in the beginning the focus is very much on the rules and regulations but gradually nitya–siddha kṛṣṇa-bhakti sadhu kabhu nayaśravaṇādi-śuddha-citta karaye udaya, the darkness will disappear and the natural light of love of Godhead will manifest in our hearts and we become empowered, we begin to connect with the soul. Thinking, feeling and willing no longer comes from the mind but directly happens from the soul, yes, then in that stage such a vaishnava will always naturally act according to the scriptures. We have the example in our sampradaya also of a simple personality, that simple personality is Gaura Kishore das Babaji Maharaj. He was just totally uneducated , he could not read , he could not write . in india there are still that many people who cannot read and write. When they have to sign a document or something, they are working and they have to sign, they receive the paper, they do it with a thumbprint. In Mayapur, we have many such workers , every morning there is the ink pad and muslims they have to say that they are present. There is a list and it says, Abdul.. Hajir and thumbprint in the ledger , this is the system. So, yes , this is common in India thumbprint comes in court and everything when you cannot sign, signature please, pointing a thumb. So, Srila Gaura Kishore das Babaji could not write and he could not read so what happened was other devotees would read the scriptures out loud to him and Srila Gaura Kishore das Babaji would give the explanation of what it meant, that was very interesting , you know, all the big big scholars and everyone would listen to the explanation of Srila Gaura Kishore das Babaji Maharaj.
Everything ultimately is revealed within the heart of a pure devotee , so let us aspire for pure devotional service and let us aspire to give up material desires and let us aspire to embrace devotional service , then we will become empowered, yes. We become empowered , yes, Ah, yes, this is how it works with kids, you have to be louder than them and they become quiet
Questions & Answers
Questions: # (51:52) the child, he was sent outdoor, how this when we are tolerant then do such things?
Answer: Well, this little sweet child , right is making all these coochy coo sounds as they call it in english and it’s sort of drawing the mind there, they have the power to distract us, so Prabhupada would ask the children to go
so that he could actually deliver the lecture because when you are speaking today wasn’t too bad but when it gets really bad then your mind goes blank and you cannot concentrate nor the listeners concentrate. It’s austere for the mothers who would often wind up in the corridors or somewhere but yeah, ok, we also have the internet these days , that helps. Bhagavatam discussions are very serious and during bhagavatam the full focus should be on the bhagavatam, it’s not just an external ritual, we should get engaged with it so should be no disturbance , therefore we can tolerate a little bit from the children but when it is too much then you gonna ask them to go. Today I tolerated it and overpowered the kid a few times by speaking louder or intense like I learned it from my kirtans, you know my kirtans are fiery, what can I do with a bit of and what happens with children, adults they start to dance , all kids go to sleep in my kirtan.and common bhagavatam, its our life and soul, we need the bhagavatam. This is a very important time when we study the bhagavatam so cant let the kids take over, that’s what it is. If there is a house and if you see bunch of small kids and they just take over for years, i don’t think there is going to be any, maybe a few, but not many deep conversations in that house for years because every time the parents try, the kids go like, ‘eee ,ahh, no, no, no, that’s why think about it.
Question: You talked about the holy name and how you can see that people are changing when they are practising devotional service, then also you mentioned sometimes you ask, you see people chanting for a long time but they seem to not change. My question is sometimes also you experience you meet people who know about the holy name and who know about this movement but they even seem to degrade like yesterday when I came here by train, i came into the situation to spend morning hours from 1 to 4’o clock outside the train station waiting for the train and there were homeless people and one of this homeless people constantly came to me and ask me for something and I started to chant my rounds there and he said, oh hare Krishna and he even said, ‘oh, yashomati nandan and he seems to be this person who knew everything, he knew the holy name, he knew our movement, he knows prasadam, he even was like commenting on my japa chanting (maharaj said, good, he made some advancement) but he was standing in front of me like a bloody face, you know, like completely degraded , he said he is a homeless person and I was wondering what could I tell him, to chant hare krishna , he knows tit and then I thought is there something more we have to offer to public, to chant hare krishna. Is there something lacking?
Answer: In Amsterdam when Prabhupada was in the wandle park , where all the really run down hippies were , lot of drugs and they were quite run down, Prabhupada said these people are too far gone, just give them prasad, kirtan and prasad, not much more we can do at such a stage. I mean, this person obviously is one of the people who is a misfit in the material world, he cannot somehow or other fit in , in the comfortable way in society and who knows whatever tragedies happened in his life , that are undigested emotions that contributed to that, he got transcendental knowledge but he is too much afflicted by the lower modes of nature so he could also not fit in the Hare krishna movement so such people may sometimes wind up in the gutter and they have transcendental knowledge and sometimes it is very difficult in this very life to pull them out of that, sometimes they have to suffer it out and if they remain respectful towards Krishna, then in their next life they can be devotees, sometimes it takes on next life but there are also cases . I know some devotees who became like that, who died , didnt come back in the same life, obviously in the next life, what can we do to accelerate it, give lots of prasadam that is good. It is difficult, you give them a picture of Krishna, but they may be disrespectful, what can we give them? You give them a book , they throw it on the railway track or something so it’s difficult. But of course if they ask for a book, then we would give them. Sometimes these homeless people, they actually do want to read, then we give them, if they ask.
Question: Prabhu, with his question has brought up the spirit of compassion and i would like to ask ne thing about Srila Prabhupada in that connection or I would like to understand this more deeply , like one could say that Prabhuipada was moved by compassion, he was driven by compassion, he was dedicated to that spirit of compassion for others but it seems that even on a more advanced stage, this compassion is a secondary thing because Prabhupada saw himself simply as a servant of his own spiritual master. So, it seems that more important than compassion was obedience, loyalty but at the same time of course this compassion is a driving force so what is the relationship between those two different qualities and how could we say that Prabhupada was dedicated to one or the other , do they belong together, maybe you can share something about this?
Answer: Obedience is important but not to the point of putting one’s own intelligence and judgment on pause so in the name of obedience I push the pause button and my own judgment is suspended and I just trying to be obedient, no, we also have to be independent thinkers, that Prabhupada said, we have to be indently thoughtful so we also have to according to time place and circumstances apply our own intelligence as part of obedience. In the context of obedience to the spiritual master, then a vaishnava is para dukha dukhi, he feels the suffering of others. Prabhupada showed this, In India , a few sanyasis at that time, young sanyasis of course because they were young traveling with Prabhupada and they saw a car accident and they saw a man lying at the side of the road in India and a lady standing next to him crying and the car drove past so they just saw it in a flash. So, one of the sanyasis commented and said, ‘oh, just see , you know so much on the bodily platform, you know. And Prabhupada said, ‘No, this is so much suffering. Prabhupada shared in the suffering and even although Prabhupada was transcendental to it, he was sharing it. I sometimes give the example of how an adult can share the suffering of the child although the suffering of the child is often childish about childish things , you know, losing a toy, it’s a drama. We say common you know, hey kid, it;s just a toy , go away, it’s not worth crying, no, no , we go with it, no really, you lost your toy, no that’s very important, we have to find it, yes , yes, yes, some relief. So we are taking the emotions of the child seriously because we know, although the object of the emotion is not serious, we know that the emotion is deep and serious. We know that the pain is real , maybe the object is not so serious, its a child but the pain is real so we deal with the pain. So, the transcendentalists know that the source of the pain is maybe due to maya , due to bodily identification but at the same time he knows the pain is very real and he is compassionate, para dukha dukhi, he feels the pain. He’s not just like philosophical about it , he is a spirit soul conditioned by maya feeling pain, therefore it is my duty as the obedient servant of my spiritual master to give some mercy , right because I am representing that parampara , click, zz. A little piece of paper comes out, mercy given at 2022, you know. Friday, the 13th had to happen, no the heart is there, para dukha dukhi, the heart is really there and we see that in Srila Prabhupada, such a heart for people and that makes him endearing. I always say spiritual life is not only about reaching up and getting to more complex of philosophy, touching the feet of the lord but also coming back down in relationship with the people, you have to bring it back down, that’s not so easy, it’s a challenge. I am trying to learn that, I am saying it’s something to practice, something not so easy
Someone says you are very compassionate
Maharaj: yeah yeah yeah, thank you very much, thank you for your kindness.
Question: in the beginning you shortly mentioned about Rupanuga and of course we know why we are rupanugas but why are we not swarupanugas after Swarup Damodar , isn’t he in one sense more close to Mahaprabhu. Didn’t he understand in one sense , he knew more the heart of mahaprabhu than Rupa Goswami. Maybe you can shed some light on this
Answer: Well, Srila Swarup Damodar Goswami is an interesting personality in the association of or among the associates of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu or he is the personal secretary of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and he is the most scholarly, he is a very great scholar . he is a very deep intimate devotee and our acharyas are describing him as Lalita. They are describing Rupa Goswami as Rupa manjari , who is the principal assistant of Lalita devi. So, now we are getting , and Ramananada Raya is Vishakha. So, here in the final pastimes, Lord Chaaitanya is with Swarup Damodar, Ramananad Raya Lalita & Vishalha. So, yes, isnt Lalita doesnt she have a few more stripes star than Rupa Goswamin, common Lalita, let’s get it straight from Lalita. I mean, she is one of the ashta sakhis , direct expansion of Srimati radharani, she is of all the sakhis, principal associate of radharani and Rupa Goswami is in a jiva tattva, perfected but not that shakti tattva of Lalita so how about that, it’s a higher tattva. Should’nt we go to a higher tattva, sounds interesting, yeah, but just like here we say, Sukhdeva Goswami, he is speaking bhagavatam and Narada & Vyasa are present, his guru, his param guru , they are present and it’s Sukhdev who speaks the bhagavatam.
So, Swarup Damodar had a different role, he was revealing the conclusions in the intimate circles. Some vaishnavas will instruct a few exalted personalities, that’s it. Others become big public acharyas, and they will preach to the universe and that’s Rupa Goswami. So, Rupa Goswami was empowered to write things down for the entire universe in a way that it was digestible and that’s what he did. Swarup Damodar , he kept his diary, his #(1:09:54) but it’s lost, he didn’t write any books, he is always in the background there. All the great acharyas are leaning on Swarup Damodar’s work, the example is given in Kavi Karnipura’s Gaura gana desh dipika, there he writes the verse
Panca tattva makam krishnam, bhakta rupa swarupakam which is the verse that explains the panca tattva for the first time and it says it comes from Swarup Damodar’s diary, this is an example. In all the other biographies of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, there is no concept of pancha tattva, not in Chaitanya Bhagavat, not in Chaitanya Mangal, it’s not there. Panca tattva comes in Chaitanya Charitamrita based on Swarup Damodar’s statement and it was earlier that verse panca tattva makam krishnam and was earlier quoted in Kavi Karnipura’s work so they were all drawing from Swarup Damodar but Swarup Damodar always stayed in the background but he was the greatest authority amongst the associates of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu so definitely yes, he was a senior to Rupa Goswami and Rupa Goswami treated him like that but his role was not to be the public preacher, that’s how we should see it whereas Rupa had that role. So, everyone has a role to play , some are meant to be more private, some are meant to be more public. There is an advantage in being private, there is an advantage in having only few disciples or no disciples at all, in that one has time for internal life. Once you become a big acharya, they eat up all your life, they will have you for breakfast. Oh having mentioned that word breakfast, i think that signals the end of this class.
Thank you very much, Srila Prabhupada ji jai