Tag: Srimad Bhagavatham Canto 2

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM HH HARIVILAS MAHARAJ’S MORNING BHAGAVATAM CLASS ON SB 2.6.23:

1. Lord Brahmā, the creator of the cosmic manifestation, is known as Svayambhū, or one who is born without father and mother.
2. Brahmā, the firstborn living being, is born out of the abdominal lotus flower of the Mahā-Viṣṇu plenary expansion of Lord Kṛṣṇa. The abdominal lotus flower is part of the Lord’s bodily limbs, and Brahmā is born out of the lotus flower. Therefore Lord Brahmā is also a part of the Lord’s body.
3. Nothing is created out of nothing, but everything is created from the person of the Lord. The Lord says in the Bhagavad-gītā (10.8), ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavo mattaḥ sarvaṁ pravartate: “Everything is made from My bodily limbs, and I am therefore the original source of all creations.”
4. Worship of the Lord is also performed by the ingredients born from the bodily limbs of the Lord, and yet the worshiper, who is himself a part of the Lord, achieves the result of devotional service to the Lord.
5. While the impersonalist wrongly concludes that he is the Lord himself, the personalist, out of a great gratitude, worships the Lord in devotional service, knowing perfectly well that nothing is different from the Lord.
6. The devotee therefore endeavors to apply everything in the service of the Lord because he knows that everything is the property of the Lord and that no one can claim anything as one’s own.
7. This perfect conception of oneness helps the worshiper in being engaged in His loving service, whereas the impersonalist, being falsely puffed up, remains a nondevotee forever, without being recognized by the Lord.
8. The impersonalist, however, argues on the strength of the Vedic version given in the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad (3.10): tato yad uttara-taraṁ tad arūpam anāmayam/ ya etad vidur amṛtās te bhavanti athetare duḥkham evāpiyanti. “ He puts puts more stress on the word arūpam. But this arūpam is not impersonal. It indicates the transcendental form of eternity, bliss and knowledge as described in the Brahma-saṁhitā quoted above.
9. Except for the madhyama-adhikārī and uttama-adhikārī, no one can correctly see the spiritual position of a living being. The living entities are qualitatively one with the Supreme Lord, just as the sparks of a fire are qualitatively one with the fire. Yet sparks are not fire as far as quantity is concerned, for the quantity of heat and light present in the sparks is not equal to that in fire.
10. The mahā-bhāgavata, the great devotee, sees oneness in the sense that he sees everything as the energy of the Supreme Lord. Since there is no difference between the energy and the energetic, there is the sense of oneness
11. In ISO mantra 7, the words ekatvam anupaśyataḥ indicate that one should see the unity of all living entities from the viewpoint of the revealed scriptures. The individual sparks of the supreme whole (the Lord) possess almost eighty percent of the known qualities of the whole, but they are not quantitatively equal to the Supreme Lord.
12. If the individual living being were equal to the Supreme Lord both qualitatively and quantitatively, there would be no question of his being under the influence of the material energy. In the previous mantras it has already been discussed that no living being – not even the powerful demigods – can surpass the Supreme Being in any respect. Therefore ekatvam does not mean that a living being is equal in all respects to the Supreme Lord.
13. Every living being is the son of the Supreme Being. As stated in the Bhagavad-gītā (7.5), all living creatures throughout the universe – including birds, reptiles, ants, aquatics, trees and so on – are emanations of the marginal potency of the Supreme Lord. Therefore all of them belong to the family of the Supreme Being. There is no clash of interest.
14. The spiritual entities are meant for enjoyment, as stated in the Vedānta-sūtra (1.1.12): ānanda-mayo ’bhyāsāt. By nature and constitution, every living being – including the Supreme Lord and each of His parts and parcels – is meant for eternal enjoyment. The living beings who are encaged in the material tabernacle are constantly seeking enjoyment, but they are seeking it on the wrong platform.
15. On the nirguṇa platform there is never a clash over the object of enjoyment.
    Here in the material world there is always a clash between different individual beings because here the proper center of enjoyment is missed. The real center of enjoyment is the Supreme Lord, who is the center of the sublime and spiritual rāsa dance. We are all meant to join Him and enjoy life with one transcendental interest and without any clash. That is the highest platform of spiritual interest, and as soon as one realizes this perfect form of oneness, there can be no question of illusion (moha) or lamentation (śoka).
16. A learned scholar who has studied the Vedas perfectly and has information from authorities like Lord Caitanya and who knows how to apply these teachings can understand that Kṛṣṇa is the origin of everything in both the material and spiritual worlds, and because he knows this perfectly he becomes firmly fixed in the devotional service of the Supreme Lord. He can never be deviated by any amount of nonsensical commentaries or by fools.

SB 2.6.23 TRANSLATION

When I was born from the abdominal lotus flower of the Lord [Mahā-Viṣṇu], the great person, I had no ingredients for sacrificial performances except the bodily limbs of the great Personality of Godhead.

Purport

Lord Brahmā, the creator of the cosmic manifestation, is known as Svayambhū, or one who is born without father and mother. The general process is that a living creature is born out of the sex combination of the male father and the female mother. But Brahmā, the firstborn living being, is born out of the abdominal lotus flower of the Mahā-Viṣṇu plenary expansion of Lord Kṛṣṇa. The abdominal lotus flower is part of the Lord’s bodily limbs, and Brahmā is born out of the lotus flower. Therefore Lord Brahmā is also a part of the Lord’s body. Brahmā, after his appearance in the gigantic hollow of the universe, saw darkness and nothing else. He felt perplexity, and from his heart he was inspired by the Lord to undergo austerity, thereby acquiring the ingredients for sacrificial performances. But there was nothing besides the two of them, namely the Personality of Mahā-Viṣṇu and Brahmā himself, born of the bodily part of the Lord. For sacrificial performances many ingredients were in need, especially animals. The animal sacrifice is never meant for killing the animal, but for achieving the successful result of the sacrifice. The animal offered in the sacrificial fire is, so to speak, destroyed, but the next moment it is given a new life by dint of the Vedic hymns chanted by the expert priest. When such an expert priest is not available, the animal sacrifice in the fire of the sacrificial altar is forbidden. 

Thus Brahmā created even the sacrificial ingredients out of the bodily limbs of the Garbhodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, which means that the cosmic order was created by Brahmā himself. Also, nothing is created out of nothing, but everything is created from the person of the Lord. The Lord says in the Bhagavad-gītā (10.8), ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavo mattaḥ sarvaṁ pravartate: “Everything is made from My bodily limbs, and I am therefore the original source of all creations.”

The impersonalists argue that there is no use in worshiping the Lord when everything is nothing but the Lord Himself. The personalist, however, worships the Lord out of a great sense of gratitude, utilizing the ingredients born out of the bodily limbs of the Lord. The fruits and flowers are available from the body of the earth, and yet mother earth is worshiped by the sensible devotee with ingredients born from the earth. Similarly, mother Ganges is worshiped by the water of the Ganges, and yet the worshiper enjoys the result of such worship. Worship of the Lord is also performed by the ingredients born from the bodily limbs of the Lord, and yet the worshiper, who is himself a part of the Lord, achieves the result of devotional service to the Lord. 

While the impersonalist wrongly concludes that he is the Lord himself, the personalist, out of a great gratitude, worships the Lord in devotional service, knowing perfectly well that nothing is different from the Lord. The devotee therefore endeavors to apply everything in the service of the Lord because he knows that everything is the property of the Lord and that no one can claim anything as one’s own. This perfect conception of oneness helps the worshiper in being engaged in His loving service, whereas the impersonalist, being falsely puffed up, remains a nondevotee forever, without being recognized by the Lord.

The greatest point made by SP in this verse is “ the personalist, out of a great gratitude, worships the Lord in devotional service, knowing perfectly well that nothing is different from the Lord”

A Personalist worships the lord with great sense of gratitude – Because he recognizes the proprietorship of the lord. 

Budhist – 

Mayavadi – only Brahma Jyothi exists, no personal form exists. Very adamant at saying that the personal form of lord is a Maya. 

These are all confusions. Which have misled people for many thousands of years. 

Everything that we see, spiritual material., everything is the energy of the lord. 

Infinite number of the forms of the lord. One balaram, 1st chatur vyuha, 2nd chatur vyuha, aniruddha, pradyumna… Only one Krsna. This is bewildering for people as they do not accept Krsna is the origin of everything. He is Bhokatram yajna tapasam… They are no longer struggling to be the dominator, controller… When one is receiving the benefits, they offerit back. We take water from Ganga and offer it back to her.. 

There are many impersonalists who know lot of sastra but they misinterpret and they prove that Lord is nirakar and ultimately insult the Lord.

BG 7.7

The impersonalist, however, argues on the strength of the Vedic version given in the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad (3.10): tato yad uttara-taraṁ tad arūpam anāmayam/ ya etad vidur amṛtās te bhavanti athetare duḥkham evāpiyanti. “In the material world Brahmā, the primeval living entity within the universe, is understood to be the supreme amongst the demigods, human beings and lower animals. But beyond Brahmā there is the Transcendence, who has no material form and is free from all material contaminations. Anyone who can know Him also becomes transcendental, but those who do not know Him suffer the miseries of the material world.”

The impersonalist puts more stress on the word arūpam. But this arūpam is not impersonal. It indicates the transcendental form of eternity, bliss and knowledge as described in the Brahma-saṁhitā quoted above. Other verses in the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad (3.8–9) substantiate this as follows:

vedāham etaṁ puruṣaṁ mahāntam

āditya-varṇaṁ tamasaḥ parastāt

tam eva viditvāti mṛtyum eti

nānyaḥ panthā vidyate ’yanāya

yasmāt paraṁ nāparam asti kiñcid

yasmān nāṇīyo no jyāyo ’sti kiñcit

vṛkṣa iva stabdho divi tiṣṭhaty ekas

tenedaṁ pūrṇaṁ puruṣeṇa sarvam

“I know that Supreme Personality of Godhead who is transcendental to all material conceptions of darkness. Only he who knows Him can transcend the bonds of birth and death. There is no way for liberation other than this knowledge of that Supreme Person.

“There is no truth superior to that Supreme Person, because He is the supermost. He is smaller than the smallest, and He is greater than the greatest. He is situated as a silent tree, and He illumines the transcendental sky, and as a tree spreads its roots, He spreads His extensive energies.”

From these verses, one concludes that the Supreme Absolute Truth is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is all-pervading by His multi-energies, both material and spiritual.

This is further emphasized in ISO mantra 7

ISO mantra 7 

One who always sees all living entities as spiritual sparks, in quality one with the Lord, becomes a true knower of things. What, then, can be illusion or anxiety for him?

Sat chit ananda vigraha – We are part and parcel of Krsna. We are eternal, chit – we are limited by our body in knowledge, 

Except for the madhyama-adhikārī and uttama-adhikārī discussed above, no one can correctly see the spiritual position of a living being. The living entities are qualitatively one with the Supreme Lord, just as the sparks of a fire are qualitatively one with the fire. Yet sparks are not fire as far as quantity is concerned, for the quantity of heat and light present in the sparks is not equal to that in fire. The mahā-bhāgavata, the great devotee, sees oneness in the sense that he sees everything as the energy of the Supreme Lord. Since there is no difference between the energy and the energetic, there is the sense of oneness. Although from the analytical point of view heat and light are different from fire, there is no meaning to the word “fire” without heat and light. In synthesis, therefore, heat, light and fire are the same.

The Lord has multiple energies – spiritual & material. There are infinite energies of the lord

In this mantra the words ekatvam anupaśyataḥ indicate that one should see the unity of all living entities from the viewpoint of the revealed scriptures. The individual sparks of the supreme whole (the Lord) possess almost eighty percent of the known qualities of the whole, but they are not quantitatively equal to the Supreme Lord. These qualities are present in minute quantity, for the living entity is but a minute part and parcel of the supreme whole. To use another example, the quantity of salt present in a drop is never comparable to the quantity of salt present in the complete ocean, but the salt present in the drop is qualitatively equal in chemical composition to all the salt present in the ocean. If the individual living being were equal to the Supreme Lord both qualitatively and quantitatively, there would be no question of his being under the influence of the material energy. In the previous mantras it has already been discussed that no living being – not even the powerful demigods – can surpass the Supreme Being in any respect. Therefore ekatvam does not mean that a living being is equal in all respects to the Supreme Lord. 

It does, however, indicate that in a broader sense there is one interest, just as in a family the interest of all members is one, or in a nation the national interest is one, although there are many different individual citizens. Since the living entities are all members of the same supreme family, their interest and that of the Supreme Being are not different. Every living being is the son of the Supreme Being. As stated in the Bhagavad-gītā (7.5), all living creatures throughout the universe – including birds, reptiles, ants, aquatics, trees and so on – are emanations of the marginal potency of the Supreme Lord. Therefore all of them belong to the family of the Supreme Being. There is no clash of interest.

Many analogies given, it is not sastric evidence, it is an example given to help us understand the Sastra better. 

1. Spark of fire
2. Drop of water from ocean 
3. Family agrees to Father

The spiritual entities are meant for enjoyment, as stated in the Vedānta-sūtra (1.1.12): ānanda-mayo ’bhyāsāt. By nature and constitution, every living being – including the Supreme Lord and each of His parts and parcels – is meant for eternal enjoyment. The living beings who are encaged in the material tabernacle are constantly seeking enjoyment, but they are seeking it on the wrong platform. Apart from the material platform is the spiritual platform, where the Supreme Being enjoys Himself with His innumerable associates. On that platform there is no trace of material qualities, and therefore that platform is called nirguṇa. On the nirguṇa platform there is never a clash over the object of enjoyment. 

Here in the material world there is always a clash between different individual beings because here the proper center of enjoyment is missed. The real center of enjoyment is the Supreme Lord, who is the center of the sublime and spiritual rāsa dance. We are all meant to join Him and enjoy life with one transcendental interest and without any clash. That is the highest platform of spiritual interest, and as soon as one realizes this perfect form of oneness, there can be no question of illusion (moha) or lamentation (śoka).

Many examples SP is giving to show that Mayavadis are misinterpreting 

1. Ekatvam – Everything is one, everything else is false, we are qualitatively and quantitatively the same. 
2. Ananda – 
3. Nirguna – No body, no eyes, no ears, just light, just energy . They are insulting Krsna saying he does not have a body, it is just energy. 

BG 10.8 

I am the source of all spiritual and material worlds. Everything emanates from Me. The wise who perfectly know this engage in My devotional service and worship Me with all their hearts.

Alternate translation – 

Also, nothing is created out of nothing, but everything is created from the person of the Lord. The Lord says in the Bhagavad-gītā (10.8), ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavo mattaḥ sarvaṁ pravartate: “Everything is made from My bodily limbs, and I am therefore the original source of all creations.”

A learned scholar who has studied the Vedas perfectly and has information from authorities like Lord Caitanya and who knows how to apply these teachings can understand that Kṛṣṇa is the origin of everything in both the material and spiritual worlds, and because he knows this perfectly he becomes firmly fixed in the devotional service of the Supreme Lord. He can never be deviated by any amount of nonsensical commentaries or by fools

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM HH HARIVILAS MAHARAJ’S MORNING BHAGAVATAM CLASS ON SB 2.6.22:

1. The supreme truth has been ascertained in the previous verse as puruṣa or the puruṣottama, the Supreme Person.
2. The Absolute Person is the īśvara, or the supreme controller, by His different energies. The ekapād-vibhūti manifestation of the material energy of the Lord is just like one of the many mistresses of the Lord, by whom the Lord is not so much attracted, as indicated in the language of the Gītā (bhinnā prakṛtiḥ). 
3. But the region of the tripād-vibhūti, being a pure spiritual manifestation of the energy of the Lord, is, so to speak, more attractive to Him.
4. The Lord, therefore, generates the material manifestations by impregnating the material energy, and then, within the manifestation, He expands Himself as the gigantic form of the viśva-rūpa. 
5. The viśva-rūpa, as it was shown to Arjuna, is not the original form of the Lord. The original form of the Lord is the transcendental form of Puruṣottama, or Kṛṣṇa Himself.
6. It is very nicely explained herein that He expands Himself just like the sun. The sun expands itself by its terrible heat and rays, yet the sun is always aloof from such rays and heat. 
7. The impersonalist takes into consideration the rays of the Lord without any information of the tangible, transcendental, eternal form of the Lord, known as Kṛṣṇa. 
8. Therefore Kṛṣṇa, in His supreme personal form, with two hands and flute, is bewildering for the impersonalists, who can accommodate only the gigantic viśva-rūpa of the Lord. 
9. They should know that the rays of the sun are secondary to the sun, and similarly, the impersonal gigantic form of the Lord is also secondary to the personal form as Puruṣottama. The Brahma-saṁhitā (5.37) confirms this statement.
10. “The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Govinda, the one who enlivens the senses of everyone by His personal bodily rays, resides in His transcendental abode, called Goloka. Yet He is present in every nook and corner of His creation by the expansion of happy spiritual rays, equal in power to His personal potency of bliss.” 
11. He is therefore simultaneously personal and impersonal by His inconceivable potency, or He is the one without a second, displaying complete unity in a diversity of material and spiritual manifestations. He is separate from everything, and still, nothing is different from Him.
12. No one can surpass the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa – neither the conditioned soul nor the liberated soul. He is therefore the greatest of personalities.
13. The difference is that the living entities, either in the conditioned state or in the liberated state, cannot surpass in quantity the inconceivable potencies of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. 
14. It is incorrect to think of the Supreme Lord and the living entities as being on the same level or equal in all respects. There is always the question of superiority and inferiority between their personalities. The word uttama is very significant. No one can surpass the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
15. the living entities, either in the conditioned state or in the liberated state, cannot surpass in quantity the inconceivable potencies of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. It is incorrect to think of the Supreme Lord and the living entities as being on the same level or equal in all respects. There is always the question of superiority and inferiority between their personalities.
16. Whoever knows Me as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, without doubting, is the knower of everything. He therefore engages himself in full devotional service to Me, O son of Bharata.
17. The imperfect knower goes on simply speculating about the Absolute Truth, but the perfect knower, without wasting his valuable time, engages directly in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, the devotional service of the Supreme Lord. 
18. Vedic knowledge is called śruti, learning by aural reception. One should actually receive the Vedic message from authorities like Kṛṣṇa and His representatives.  
19. Simply to hear like the hogs is not sufficient; one must be able to understand from the authorities. It is not that one should simply speculate academically. 
20. One should submissively hear from Bhagavad-gītā that these living entities are always subordinate to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Anyone who is able to understand this, according to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, knows the purpose of the Vedas; no one else knows the purpose of the Vedas.
21. But if anyone, after speculating for hundreds of thousands of lives, does not come to the point that Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead and that one has to surrender there, all his speculation for so many years and lives is a useless waste of time.

SB 2.6.22 TRANSLATION:

From that Personality of Godhead, all the universal globes and the universal form with all material elements, qualities, and senses are generated. Yet He is aloof from such material manifestations, like the sun, which is separate from its rays and heat.

CLASS NOTES: 

The Lord is Purushottama

The supreme truth has been ascertained in the previous verse as puruṣa or the puruṣottama, the Supreme Person. The Absolute Person is the īśvara, or the supreme controller, by His different energies. The ekapād-vibhūti manifestation of the material energy of the Lord is just like one of the many mistresses of the Lord, by whom the Lord is not so much attracted, as indicated in the language of the Gītā (bhinnā prakṛtiḥ). But the region of the tripād-vibhūti, being a pure spiritual manifestation of the energy of the Lord, is, so to speak, more attractive to Him.

The Lord expands Himself as the gigantic form of the viśva-rūpa.

The Lord, therefore, generates the material manifestations by impregnating the material energy, and then, within the manifestation, He expands Himself as the gigantic form of the viśva-rūpa. The viśva-rūpa, as it was shown to Arjuna, is not the original form of the Lord. The original form of the Lord is the transcendental form of Puruṣottama, or Kṛṣṇa Himself. It is very nicely explained herein that He expands Himself just like the sun. The sun expands itself by its terrible heat and rays, yet the sun is always aloof from such rays and heat. The impersonalist takes into consideration the rays of the Lord without any information of the tangible, transcendental, eternal form of the Lord, known as Kṛṣṇa. Therefore Kṛṣṇa, in His supreme personal form, with two hands and flute, is bewildering for the impersonalists, who can accommodate only the gigantic viśva-rūpa of the Lord. They should know that the rays of the sun are secondary to the sun, and similarly the impersonal gigantic form of the Lord is also secondary to the personal form as Puruṣottama. The Brahma-saṁhitā (5.37) confirms this statement as follows:

ānanda-cinmaya-rasa-pratibhāvitābhis

tābhir ya eva nija-rūpatayā kalābhiḥ

goloka eva nivasaty akhilātma-bhūto

govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi

“The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Govinda, the one who enlivens the senses of everyone by His personal bodily rays, resides in His transcendental abode, called Goloka. Yet He is present in every nook and corner of His creation by expansion of happy spiritual rays, equal in power to His personal potency of bliss.” He is therefore simultaneously personal and impersonal by His inconceivable potency, or He is the one without a second, displaying complete unity in a diversity of material and spiritual manifestations. He is separate from everything, and still, nothing is different from Him.

This is the simultaneous oneness and difference of the lord. This is the unique feature of the lord. 

1. Lord is known as Purushottama’s supreme personality. This is explained in the 15th chapter. 

BG 15.18 

BG 15.18 – Because I am transcendental, beyond both the fallible and the infallible, and because I am the greatest, I am celebrated both in the world and in the Vedas as that Supreme Person.

No one can surpass the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa – neither the conditioned soul nor the liberated soul. He is therefore the greatest of personalities. Now it is clear here that the living entities and the Supreme Personality of Godhead are individuals. The difference is that the living entities, either in the conditioned state or in the liberated state, cannot surpass in quantity the inconceivable potencies of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. It is incorrect to think of the Supreme Lord and the living entities as being on the same level or equal in all respects. There is always the question of superiority and inferiority between their personalities. The word uttama is very significant. No one can surpass the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Sat – we and Krsna are equal

Ananda – we can experience bliss in our liberated stage 

Cit – we can never be equal or greater than Krsna with respect to Knowledge and potencieskl;/. We can never emulate it. Quantitative diff comes here. 

Unless we are doubt-free about who Krsna is we cannot experience the bliss of devotional service.

The word loke signifies “in the pauruṣa āgama (the smṛti scriptures).” As confirmed in the Nirukti dictionary, lokyate vedārtho ’nena: “The purpose of the Vedas is explained by the smṛti scriptures.”

The Supreme Lord, in His localized aspect of Paramātmā, is also described in the Vedas themselves. The following verse appears in the Vedas (Chāndogya Upaniṣad 8.12.3): tāvad eṣa samprasādo ’smāc charīrāt samutthāya paraṁ jyoti-rūpaṁ sampadya svena rūpeṇābhiniṣpadyate sa uttamaḥ puruṣaḥ. “The Supersoul coming out of the body enters the impersonal brahma-jyotir; then in His form He remains in His spiritual identity. That Supreme is called the Supreme Personality.” This means that the Supreme Personality is exhibiting and diffusing His spiritual effulgence, which is the ultimate illumination. That Supreme Personality also has a localized aspect as Paramātmā. By incarnating Himself as the son of Satyavatī and Parāśara, He explains the Vedic knowledge as Vyāsadev

BG 15.16 

Whoever knows Me as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, without doubting, is the knower of everything. He therefore engages himself in full devotional service to Me, O son of Bharata.

There are many philosophical speculations about the constitutional position of the living entities and the Supreme Absolute Truth. Now in this verse the Supreme Personality of Godhead clearly explains that anyone who knows Lord Kṛṣṇa to be the Supreme Person is actually the knower of everything. The imperfect knower goes on simply speculating about the Absolute Truth, but the perfect knower, without wasting his valuable time, engages directly in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, the devotional service of the Supreme Lord. Throughout the whole of Bhagavad-gītā, this fact is being stressed at every step. And still there are so many stubborn commentators on Bhagavad-gītā who consider the Supreme Absolute Truth and the living entities to be one and the same.

Vedic knowledge is called śruti, learning by aural reception. One should actually receive the Vedic message from authorities like Kṛṣṇa and His representatives. Here Kṛṣṇa distinguishes everything very nicely, and one should hear from this source. Simply to hear like the hogs is not sufficient; one must be able to understand from the authorities. It is not that one should simply speculate academically. One should submissively hear from Bhagavad-gītā that these living entities are always subordinate to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Anyone who is able to understand this, according to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, knows the purpose of the Vedas; no one else knows the purpose of the Vedas.

The word bhajati is very significant. In many places the word bhajati is expressed in relationship with the service of the Supreme Lord. If a person is engaged in full Kṛṣṇa consciousness, in the devotional service of the Lord, it is to be understood that he has understood all the Vedic knowledge. In the Vaiṣṇava paramparā it is said that if one is engaged in the devotional service of Kṛṣṇa, then there is no need for any other spiritual process for understanding the Supreme Absolute Truth. He has already come to the point, because he is engaged in the devotional service of the Lord. He has ended all preliminary processes of understanding. But if anyone, after speculating for hundreds of thousands of lives, does not come to the point that Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead and that one has to surrender there, all his speculation for so many years and lives is a useless waste of time.

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM HH HARIVILAS MAHARAJ’S MORNING BHAGAVATAM CLASS ON SB 2.6.18

1. In the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, the total universes in the external potency of the Lord are compared to a bucketful of mustard seeds.
2. 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?
3. Such planets, being spiritual, are in fact transcendental to the material modes; therefore they are constituted in the mode of unalloyed goodness only. 
4. The conception of spiritual bliss (brahmānanda) is fully present in those planets. 
5. Each of them is eternal, indestructible and free from all kinds of limitations experienced in the material world. 
6. Each of them is self-illuminating and more powerfully dazzling than (if we can imagine) the total sunshine of millions of mundane suns. 
7. The inhabitants of those planets are liberated from birth, death, old age and diseases and have full knowledge of everything; 
8. they are all godly and free from all sorts of material hankerings. 
9. They have nothing to do there except to render transcendental loving service to the Supreme 
10. Lord Nārāyaṇa, who is the predominating Deity of such Vaikuṇṭha planets. 
11. Those liberated souls are engaged incessantly in singing songs mentioned in the Sāma Veda (vedaiḥ sāṅga-pada-kramopaniṣadair gāyanti yaṁ sāmagāḥ). 
12. All of them are personifications of the five Upaniṣads. 
13. 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 
14. 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. 
15. 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. 
16. The Lord and His eternal servitors in the transcendental kingdom all have eternal forms which are auspicious, infallible, spiritual and eternally youthful. 
17. In other words, there is no birth, death, old age and disease. 
18. That eternal land is full of transcendental enjoyment and full of beauty and bliss. 
19. This very fact is also corroborated in this verse of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and the transcendental nature is described as amṛta. 
20. 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. 
21. 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. 
22. 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. 
23. 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. 
24. 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. 
25. 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.
26. 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. 
27. 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. 
28. 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. 
29. 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. 
30. Happiness in spiritual nature always increases in volume with a new phase of appreciation; there is no question of decreasing the bliss. 
31. 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. 
32. 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.

SB 2.6.18 

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.

VERY IMP PURPORT – explains the diff bet material world and spiritual world 

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. 

1. Such planets, being spiritual, are in fact transcendental to the material modes; therefore 
2. they are constituted in the mode of unalloyed goodness only. 
3. The conception of spiritual bliss (brahmānanda) is fully present in those planets. 
4. Each of them is eternal, indestructible and free from all kinds of limitations experienced in the material world. 
5. Each of them is self-illuminating and more powerfully dazzling than (if we can imagine) the total sunshine of millions of mundane suns. 
6. The inhabitants of those planets are liberated from birth, death, old age and diseases and have full knowledge of everything; 
7. they are all godly and free from all sorts of material hankerings. 
8. They have nothing to do there 
9. except to render transcendental loving service to the Supreme 
10. Lord Nārāyaṇa, who is the predominating Deity of such Vaikuṇṭha planets. 
11. Those liberated souls are engaged incessantly in singing songs mentioned in the Sāma Veda (vedaiḥ sāṅga-pada-kramopaniṣadair gāyanti yaṁ sāmagāḥ). 
12. All of them are personifications of the five Upaniṣads. 
13. 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 
14. 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. 
15. It is also said in the Padma Purāṇa that the kingdom of tripād-vibhūti is transcendental, whereas the pāda-vibhūti is mundane; 
16. tripād-vibhūti is eternal, whereas the pāda-vibhūti is transient. 
17. The Lord and His eternal servitors in the transcendental kingdom all have eternal forms which are auspicious, infallible, spiritual and eternally youthful. 
18. In other words, there is no birth, death, old age and disease. 
19. That eternal land is full of transcendental enjoyment and full of beauty and bliss. 
20. This very fact is also corroborated in this verse of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and the transcendental nature is described as amṛta. 
21. 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. 
22. 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. 
23. 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. 
24. 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. 
25. 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. 
26. 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. 
27. In the mundane world, there is always the influence of time, which changes things from one stage to another, and 
28. the living entity, originally being avikāra, or unchangeable, suffers a great deal on account of changes due to the influence of time. 
29. 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. 
30. 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. 
31. 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. 
32. Happiness in spiritual nature always increases in volume with a new phase of appreciation; there is no question of decreasing the bliss. 
33. 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. 
34. 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.
35. The spiritual world, which consists of three-fourths of the Lord’s energy, is situated beyond this material world, and it is especially meant for those who will never be reborn. Others, who are attached to family life and who do not strictly follow celibacy vows, must live within the three material worlds.
    
    

An amazing purport, diff between experiences in the spiritual world and material world. Nowhere else there is such an elaborate description. To attain SW we need to understand where we were originally and why we fell down. The majority do not fall down. Only minority fall down. This is explained in SB. 

SB 4.27.5 

These laws and scriptures are meant for human beings. As such, if one violates these laws, he becomes sinful. The conclusion is that unrestricted sense enjoyment means sinful activities. Illicit sex is sex that violates the laws given in the scriptures. When one violates the laws of the scriptures, or the Vedas, he commits sinful activities. One who is engaged in sinful activities cannot change his consciousness. Our real function is to change our consciousness from kaśmala, sinful consciousness, to Kṛṣṇa, the supreme pure. As confirmed in Bhagavad-gītā (paraṁ brahma paraṁ dhāma pavitraṁ paramaṁ bhavān), Kṛṣṇa is the supreme pure, and if we change our consciousness from material enjoyment to Kṛṣṇa, we become purified. This is the process recommended by Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu as the process of ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam, cleansing the mirror of the heart.

SB 5.5.10-13 

Another important item is dvandva-titikṣā. As long as one is situated in the material world, there must be pleasure and pain arising from the material body. As Kṛṣṇa advises in Bhagavad-gītā, tāṁs titikṣasva bhārata. One has to learn how to tolerate the temporary pains and pleasures of this material world. One must also be detached from his family and practice celibacy. Sex with one’s wife according to the scriptural injunctions is also accepted as brahmacarya (celibacy), but illicit sex is opposed to religious principles, and it hampers advancement in spiritual consciousness. Another important word is vijñāna-virājita. Everything should be done very scientifically and consciously. One should be a realized soul. In this way, one can give up the entanglement of material bondage.

SB 2.4.20 

Since Śukadeva Gosvāmī is one of the prominent gata-vyalīkas, who are freed from all misconceptions, he therefore expresses his own realized perception of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa as being the sum total of all perfection, the Personality of Godhead. Everyone is seeking the favor of the goddess of fortune, but people do not know that Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa is the beloved husband of all goddesses of fortune. In the Brahma-saṁhitā it is said that the Lord, in His transcendental abode Goloka Vṛndāvana, is accustomed to herding the surabhi cows and is served there by hundreds of thousands of goddesses of fortune. All these goddesses of fortune are manifestations of His transcendental pleasure potency (hlādinī-śakti) in His internal energy, and when the Lord manifested Himself on this earth He partially displayed the activities of His pleasure potency in His rāsa-līlā just to attract the conditioned souls, who are all after the phantasmagoria pleasure potency in degraded sex enjoyment. The pure devotees of the Lord like Śukadeva Gosvāmī, who was completely detached from the abominable sex life of the material world, discussed this act of the Lord’s pleasure potency certainly not in relation to sex, but to relish a transcendental taste inconceivable to the mundaners who are after sex life. Sex life in the mundane world is the root-cause of being conditioned by the shackles of illusion, and certainly Śukadeva Gosvāmī was never interested in the sex life of the mundane world. Nor does the manifestation of the Lord’s pleasure potency have any connection with such degraded things. Lord Caitanya was a strict sannyāsī, so much so that He did not allow any woman to come near Him, not even to bow down and offer respects. He never even heard the prayers of the deva-dāsīs offered in the temple of Jagannātha because a sannyāsī is forbidden to hear songs sung by the fair sex. Yet even in the rigid position of a sannyāsī He recommended the mode of worship preferred by the gopīs of Vṛndāvana as the topmost loving service possible to be rendered to the Lord. And Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī is the principal head of all such goddesses of fortune, and therefore She is the pleasure counterpart of the Lord and is nondifferent from Kṛṣṇa.

Somehow or other we got attracted to the mundane sex and we got entangled in this material world. In 1960’s pornography was not allowed legally. Now it is all open in the internet and that is the reason for such illicit connections, crime, violence…

SB 2.6.20 

The spiritual world, which consists of three-fourths of the Lord’s energy, is situated beyond this material world, and it is especially meant for those who will never be reborn. Others, who are attached to family life and who do not strictly follow celibacy vows, must live within the three material worlds.

The climax of the system of varṇāśrama-dharma, or sanātana-dharma, is clearly expressed here in this particular verse of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. The highest benefit that can be awarded to a human being is to train him to be detached from sex life, particularly because it is only due to sex indulgence that the conditioned life of material existence continues birth after birth. Human civilization in which there is no control of sex life is a fourth-class civilization because in such an atmosphere there is no liberation of the soul encaged in the material body.

This needs to be taught to the kids… all around there is rush for a sense gratification.

Birth, death, old age and disease are related to the material body, and they have nothing to do with the spirit soul. But as long as the bodily attachment for sensual enjoyment is encouraged, the individual spirit soul is forced to continue the repetition of birth and death on account of the material body, which is compared to garments subjected to the law of deterioration.

When the Europeans came here, there were no laws and they made their laws from the Bible. They started with a humble spiritual life,,but later on everything deteriorated. 

In order to award the highest benefit of human life, the varṇāśrama system trains the follower to adopt the vow of celibacy beginning from the order of brahmacārī. The brahmacārī life is for students who are educated to follow strictly the vow of celibacy. Youngsters who have had no taste of sex life can easily follow the vow of celibacy, and once fixed in the principle of such a life, one can very easily continue to the highest perfectional stage, attaining the kingdom of the three-fourths energy of the Lord. It is already explained that in the cosmos of three-fourths energy of the Lord there is neither death nor fear, and one is full of the blissful life of happiness and knowledge. A householder attached to family life can easily give up such a life of sex indulgence if he has been trained in the principles of the life of a brahmacārī. A householder is recommended to quit home at the end of fifty years (pañcaśordhvaṁ vanaṁ vrajet) and live a life in the forest; then, being fully detached from family affection, he may accept the order of renunciation as a sannyāsī fully engaged in the service of the Lord. Any form of religious principles in which the followers are trained to pursue the vow of celibacy is good for the human being because only those who are trained in that way can end the miserable life of matq2erial existence. The principles of nirvāṇa, as recommended by Lord Buddha, are also meant for ending the miserable life of material existence. And this process, in the highest degree, is recommended here in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, with clear perception of ideal perfection, although basically there is no difference between the process of Buddhists, Śaṅkarites and Vaiṣṇavites. For promotion to the highest status of perfection, namely freedom from birth and death, anxiety and fearfulness, not one of these processes allows the follower to break the vow of celibacy.

Attraction to Mundane sex leads to other things like drugs etc., 

We have to teach our kids to take the vow of celibacy.
In Christians a group of people took the vow being faithful to their wives.. And they were able to inspire many to do that… 

We need to teach why we fell down from the spiritual world, why we are remaining in the material world. Pure devotional service is the solution for this sickness. 

The householders and persons who have deliberately broken the vow of celibacy cannot enter into the kingdom of deathlessness. The pious householders or the fallen yogīs or the fallen transcendentalists can be promoted to the higher planets within the material world (one-fourth of the energy of the Lord), but they will fail to enter into the kingdom of deathlessness. Abṛhad-vratas are those who have broken the vow of celibacy. The vānaprasthas, or those retired from family life, and the sannyāsīs, or the renounced persons, cannot break the vow of celibacy if they want success in the process. The brahmacārīs, vānaprasthas and sannyāsīs do not intend to take rebirth (a Praja), nor are they meant for secretly indulging in sex life. Such a fall down by the spiritualist may be compensated by another chance for human life in good families of learned brāhmaṇas or of rich merchants for another term of elevation, but the best thing is to attain the highest perfection of deathlessness as soon as the human form of life is attained; otherwise, the whole policy of human life will prove to be a total failure. Lord Caitanya was very strict in advising His followers in this matter of celibacy. One of His personal attendants, Choṭa Haridāsa, was severely punished by Lord Caitanya because of his failure to observe the vow of celibacy. For a transcendentalist, therefore, who at all wants to be promoted to the kingdom beyond material miseries, it is worse than suicide to deliberately indulge in sex life, especially in the renounced order of life. Sex life in the renounced order of life is the most perverted form of religious life, and such a misguided person can only be saved if, by chance, he meets a pure devotee.

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM HH HARIVILAS MAHARAJ’S MORNING BHAGAVATAM CLASS ON SB 2.6.17 TODAY (07/31/21):

1. The universal form of the Lord, or the impersonal feature of the Lord known as the brahmajyoti, is clearly explained here and compared to the radiation of the sun.
2.  the Supreme Personality of Godhead Lord Kṛṣṇa is the basis of the impersonal brahmajyoti radiation, or the impersonal feature of the Lord.
3. the universal form of the Lord is the secondary imagination of the impersonal form of the Lord, but the primary form of the Lord is Śyāmasundara, with two hands, playing on His eternal flute.
4. Seventy-five percent of the expansive radiation of the Lord is manifested in the spiritual sky (tripād-vibhūti), and twenty-five percent of His personal radiation comprehends the entire expansion of the material universes.
5. Thus the seventy-five-percent expansion of His radiation is called His internal energy, whereas the twenty-five-percent expansion is called the external energy of the Lord.
6. The living entities, who are residents of the spiritual as well as the material expansions, are His marginal energy (taṭasthā-śakti), and they are at liberty to live in either of the energies, external or internal.
7. Those who live within the spiritual expansion of the Lord are called liberated souls, whereas the residents of the external expansion are called the conditioned souls.
8. We can just make an estimate of the number of the residents of the internal expansions in comparison with the number of residents in the external energy and may easily conclude that the liberated souls are far more numerous than the conditioned souls.
9. material nature is the manifestation of the inferior energy of the Supreme Lord. The Lord impregnates the inferior, material nature with fragments of the superior nature, and that is the spiritual touch in the material nature.
10. The constitution of Brahman is immortality, imperishability, eternity and happiness. Brahman is the beginning of transcendental realization.
11.  When a living entity conditioned by this material nature begins the cultivation of spiritual knowledge, he elevates himself from the position of material existence and gradually rises up to the Brahman conception of the Supreme.
12. This attainment of the Brahman conception of life is the first stage in self-realization. At this stage the Brahman-realized person is transcendental to the material position, but he is not actually perfect in Brahman realization. If he wants, he can continue to stay in the Brahman position and then gradually rise up to Paramātmā realization and then to the realization of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
13. One who cannot elevate himself beyond the impersonal conception of Brahman runs the risk of falling down. In Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam it is stated that although a person may rise to the stage of impersonal Brahman, without going further, with no information of the Supreme Person, his intelligence is not perfectly clear.
14. “When one understands the Personality of Godhead, the reservoir of pleasure, Kṛṣṇa, he actually becomes transcendentally blissful.” (Taittirīya Upaniṣad 2.7.1)
15. The Supreme Lord is full in six opulences, and when a devotee approaches Him there is an exchange of these six opulences. The servant of the king enjoys on an almost equal level with the king. And so eternal happiness, imperishable happiness, and eternal life accompany devotional service.
16. Therefore, the realization of Brahman, or eternity, or imperishability, is included in devotional service. This is already possessed by a person who is engaged in devotional service.
17. Devotional service to the Lord is very simple: one should always engage in the service of the Lord, should eat the remnants of foodstuffs offered to the Deity, smell the flowers offered to the lotus feet of the Lord, see the places where the Lord had His transcendental pastimes, read of the different activities of the Lord, His reciprocation of love with His devotees, chant always the transcendental vibration Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare, and observe the fasting days commemorating the appearances and disappearances of the Lord and His devotees. By following such a process one becomes completely detached from all material activities.
18. When one becomes attached to the Supreme Personality of Godhead and surrenders to Him. At such a time one can understand that 
    • Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s mercy is everything,
    • He is the cause of all causes,
    • This material manifestation is not independent from Him.
    • The material world is a perverted reflection of spiritual variegatedness 
    • in everything there is a relationship with the Supreme Lord Kṛṣṇa. 
19. Thus he thinks of everything in relation to Vāsudeva, or Śrī Kṛṣṇa. Such a universal vision of Vāsudeva precipitates one’s full surrender to the Supreme Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa as the highest goal. Such surrendered great souls are very rare.

SB 2.6.17 TRANSLATION

The sun illuminates both internally and externally by expanding its radiation; similarly, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, by expanding His universal form, maintains everything in the creation both internally and externally.

CLASS NOTES: 

The universal form of the Lord, or the impersonal feature of the Lord known as the brahmajyoti, is clearly explained here and compared to the radiation of the sun. The sunshine may expand all over the universe, but the source of the sunshine, namely the sun planet or the deity known as Sūrya-nārāyaṇa, is the basis of such radiation. Similarly, the Supreme Personality of Godhead Lord Kṛṣṇa is the basis of the impersonal brahmajyoti radiation, or the impersonal feature of the Lord. This is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā (14.27). So the universal form of the Lord is the secondary imagination of the impersonal form of the Lord, but the primary form of the Lord is Śyāmasundara, with two hands, playing on His eternal flute. Seventy-five percent of the expansive radiation of the Lord is manifested in the spiritual sky (tripād-vibhūti), and twenty-five percent of His personal radiation comprehends the entire expansion of the material universes. This is also explained and stated in the Bhagavad-gītā (10.42). Thus the seventy-five-percent expansion of His radiation is called His internal energy, whereas the twenty-five-percent expansion is called the external energy of the Lord. The living entities, who are residents of the spiritual as well as the material expansions, are His marginal energy (taṭasthā-śakti), and they are at liberty to live in either of the energies, external or internal. Those who live within the spiritual expansion of the Lord are called liberated souls, whereas the residents of the external expansion are called the conditioned souls. We can just make an estimate of the number of the residents of the internal expansions in comparison with the number of residents in the external energy and may easily conclude that the liberated souls are far more numerous than the conditioned souls.

Further explanation of the universal form of the lord. There is an equivalence bet the Universal form and the Brahma Jyothi. 

BG 14.27 – BRAHMAN REALIZATION & IT’S PITFALLS

And I am the basis of the impersonal Brahman, which is immortal, imperishable and eternal and is the constitutional position of ultimate happiness.

The constitution of Brahman is immortality, imperishability, eternity and happiness. Brahman is the beginning of transcendental realization. Paramātmā, the Supersoul, is the middle, the second stage in transcendental realization, and the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the ultimate realization of the Absolute Truth. Therefore, both Paramātmā and the impersonal Brahman are within the Supreme Person. It is explained in the Seventh Chapter that material nature is the manifestation of the inferior energy of the Supreme Lord. The Lord impregnates the inferior, material nature with fragments of the superior nature, and that is the spiritual touch in the material nature. When a living entity conditioned by this material nature begins the cultivation of spiritual knowledge, he elevates himself from the position of material existence and gradually rises up to the Brahman conception of the Supreme. This attainment of the Brahman conception of life is the first stage in self-realization. At this stage the Brahman-realized person is transcendental to the material position, but he is not actually perfect in Brahman realization. If he wants, he can continue to stay in the Brahman position and then gradually rise up to Paramātmā realization and then to the realization of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. There are many examples of this in Vedic literature. The four Kumāras were situated first in the impersonal Brahman conception of truth, but then they gradually rose to the platform of devotional service. One who cannot elevate himself beyond the impersonal conception of Brahman runs the risk of falling down. In Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam it is stated that although a person may rise to the stage of impersonal Brahman, without going further, with no information of the Supreme Person, his intelligence is not perfectly clear. Therefore, in spite of being raised to the Brahman platform, there is the chance of falling down if one is not engaged in the devotional service of the Lord. In the Vedic language it is also said, raso vai saḥ, rasaṁ hy evāyaṁ labdhvānandī bhavati: “When one understands the Personality of Godhead, the reservoir of pleasure, Kṛṣṇa, he actually becomes transcendentally blissful.” (Taittirīya Upaniṣad 2.7.1) The Supreme Lord is full in six opulences, and when a devotee approaches Him there is an exchange of these six opulences. The servant of the king enjoys on an almost equal level with the king. And so eternal happiness, imperishable happiness, and eternal life accompany devotional service. Therefore, realization of Brahman, or eternity, or imperishability, is included in devotional service. This is already possessed by a person who is engaged in devotional service.

The living entity, although Brahman by nature, has the desire to lord it over the material world, and due to this he falls down. In his constitutional position, a living entity is above the three modes of material nature, but association with material nature entangles him in the different modes of material nature – goodness, passion and ignorance. Due to the association of these three modes, his desire to dominate the material world is there. By engagement in devotional service in full Kṛṣṇa consciousness, he is immediately situated in the transcendental position, and his unlawful desire to control material nature is removed. Therefore the process of devotional service, beginning with hearing, chanting, remembering – the prescribed nine methods for realizing devotional service – should be practiced in the association of devotees. Gradually, by such association, by the influence of the spiritual master, one’s material desire to dominate is removed, and one becomes firmly situated in the Lord’s transcendental loving service. This method is prescribed from the twenty-second to the last verse of this chapter. Devotional service to the Lord is very simple: one should always engage in the service of the Lord, should eat the remnants of foodstuffs offered to the Deity, smell the flowers offered to the lotus feet of the Lord, see the places where the Lord had His transcendental pastimes, read of the different activities of the Lord, His reciprocation of love with His devotees, chant always the transcendental vibration Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare, and observe the fasting days commemorating the appearances and disappearances of the Lord and His devotees. By following such a process one becomes completely detached from all material activities. One who can thus situate himself in the brahma-jyotir or the different varieties of the Brahman conception is equal to the Supreme Personality of Godhead in quality.

The mistake of Karmis, Gnanis, Mystic yogi  – They want heavenly sense gratification independent of Krsna or they have partial knowledge of Krsna as Brahma Jyothi or they develop these transcendental powers, they enjoy dominating things. They all want something without Krsna. They eventually fall down. Therefore the idea is if we come to the mature understanding of nothing is independent of Krsna. Surrender completely to the lord. 

How can we become detached from everything – 

This is also explained in BG 7.19 

BG 7.19 

After many births and deaths, he who is actually in knowledge surrenders unto Me, knowing Me to be the cause of all causes and all that is. Such a great soul is very rare.

SP writes about the rig veda in this purport 

The living entity, while executing devotional service or transcendental rituals after many, many births, may actually become situated in transcendental pure knowledge that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the ultimate goal of spiritual realization. In the beginning of spiritual realization, while one is trying to give up one’s attachment to materialism, there is some leaning towards impersonalism, but when one is further advanced he can understand that there are activities in the spiritual life and that these activities constitute devotional service. Realizing this, he becomes attached to the Supreme Personality of Godhead and surrenders to Him. 

At such a time one can understand that 

1. Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s mercy is everything, that He is the cause of all causes, and that 
2. this material manifestation is not independent from Him.
3. the material world to be a perverted reflection of spiritual variegatedness 
4. in everything there is a relationship with the Supreme Lord Kṛṣṇa. 
5. Thus he thinks of everything in relation to Vāsudeva, or Śrī Kṛṣṇa. 

Such a universal vision of Vāsudeva precipitates one’s full surrender to the Supreme Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa as the highest goal. Such surrendered great souls are very rare.

sahasra-śīrṣā puruṣaḥ

sahasrākṣaḥ sahasra-pāt

sa bhūmiṁ viśvato vṛtvā-

tyātiṣṭhad daśāṅgulam

puruṣa evedaṁ sarvaṁ

yad bhūtaṁ yac ca bhavyam

utāmṛtatvasyeśāno

yad annenātirohati

“Lord Viṣṇu has thousands of heads, thousands of eyes and thousands of feet. Entirely encompassing the whole universe, He still extends beyond it by ten fingers’ breadth. He is in fact this entire universe. He is all that was and all that will be. He is the Lord of immortality and of all that is nourished by food.” In the Chāndogya Upaniṣad (5.1.15) it is said, na vai vāco na cakṣūṁṣi na śrotrāṇi na manāṁsīty ācakṣate prāṇa iti evācakṣate prāṇo hy evaitāni sarvāṇi bhavanti: “In the body of a living being neither the power to speak, nor the power to see, nor the power to hear, nor the power to think is the prime factor; it is life which is the center of all activities.” Similarly Lord Vāsudeva, or the Personality of Godhead, Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, is the prime entity in everything. In this body there are powers of speaking, of seeing, of hearing, of mental activities, etc. But these are not important if not related to the Supreme Lord. And because Vāsudeva is all-pervading and everything is Vāsudeva, the devotee surrenders in full knowledge (cf. Bhagavad-gītā 7.17 and 11.40).

In 13.14 it is more elaborately explained. 

BG 13.14 – V IMP VERSE 

Everywhere are His hands and legs, His eyes, heads and faces, and He has ears everywhere. In this way the Supersoul exists, pervading everything.

We see the connection to the verse SB 2.6.17 

As the sun exists diffusing its unlimited rays, so does the Supersoul, or Supreme Personality of Godhead. He exists in His all-pervading form, and in Him exist all the individual living entities, beginning from the first great teacher, Brahmā, down to the small ants. There are unlimited heads, legs, hands and eyes, and unlimited living entities. All are existing in and on the Supersoul. Therefore the Supersoul is all-pervading. The individual soul, however, cannot say that he has his hands, legs and eyes everywhere. That is not possible. If he thinks that under ignorance he is not conscious that his hands and legs are diffused all over but when he attains to proper knowledge he will come to that stage, his thinking is contradictory. This means that the individual soul, having become conditioned by material nature, is not supreme. The Supreme is different from the individual soul. The Supreme Lord can extend His hand without limit; the individual soul cannot. In Bhagavad-gītā the Lord says that if anyone offers Him a flower, or a fruit, or a little water, He accepts it. If the Lord is a far distance away, how can He accept things? This is the omnipotence of the Lord: even though He is situated in His own abode, far, far away from earth, He can extend His hand to accept what anyone offers. That is His potency. In the Brahma-saṁhitā (5.37) it is stated, goloka eva nivasaty akhilātma-bhūtaḥ: although He is always engaged in pastimes in His transcendental planet, He is all-pervading. The individual soul cannot claim that he is all-pervading. Therefore this verse describes the Supreme Soul, the Personality of Godhead, not the individual soul

YOu can become Godly, but you can never become GOd by any process. Jiva is limited and when Jiva connects with Krsna he can experience the unlimited bliss and knowledge. We have come into this world to become KRsna, envious of KRsna. 

BG 13.15 – SYMPTOMS OF SUPREME PERSONALITY OF GODHEAD

Bhagavad-gītā also confirms that when the Lord appears He appears as He is by His internal potency. He is not contaminated by the material energy, because He is the Lord of material energy. In the Vedic literature we find that His whole embodiment is spiritual. He has His eternal form, called sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha. He is full of all opulence. He is the proprietor of all wealth and the owner of all energy. He is the most intelligent and is full of knowledge. These are some of the symptoms of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He is the maintainer of all living entities and the witness of all activity. As far as we can understand from Vedic literature, the Supreme Lord is always transcendental. Although we do not see His head, face, hands or legs, He has them, and when we are elevated to the transcendental situation we can see the Lord’s form. Due to materially contaminated senses, we cannot see His form. Therefore the impersonalists, who are still materially affected, cannot understand the Personality of Godhead.

Mayavadi philosophy is a type of sense gratification also. 

Question – supersoul is it within the soul or next to the soul. Both. It is explained in BG 8.9 

BG 8.9 

The Lord is kavi; that is, He knows past, present and future and therefore knows everything. He is the oldest personality because He is the origin of everything; everything is born out of Him. He is also the supreme controller of the universe, and He is the maintainer and instructor of humanity. He is smaller than the smallest. The living entity is one ten-thousandth part of the tip of a hair, but the Lord is so inconceivably small that He enters into the heart of this particle. Therefore He is called smaller than the smallest. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM HH HARIVILAS MAHARAJ’S MORNING BHAGAVATAM CLASS ON SB 2.6.10

1. It is clear from the available description of the body of the Lord (His universal form) that the form of the Lord is distinct from the forms of ordinary mundane conception.
2. He is never a formless void. Ignorance is the back of the Lord, and therefore the ignorance of the less intelligent class of men is also not separate from His bodily conception.
3. Since His body is the complete whole of everything that be, one cannot assert that He is impersonal only. On the contrary, the perfect description of the Lord holds that He is both impersonal and personal simultaneously.
4. The Personality of Godhead is the original feature of the Lord, and His impersonal emanation is but the reflection of His transcendental body.
5. Those who are fortunate enough to have a view of the Lord from the front can realize His personal feature, whereas those who are frustrated and are thus kept on the ignorance side of the Lord, or, in other words, those who have the view of the Lord from the back, realize Him in His impersonal feature.
6. Self-controlled persons who are attached to the Supreme Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa can all of a sudden give up the world of material attachment, including the gross body and subtle mind, and go away to attain the highest perfection of the renounced order of life, by which nonviolence and renunciation are consequential.
7. “When the mind is fixed for understanding the self, it is said to be in samādhi.” Samādhi is never possible for persons interested in material sense enjoyment and bewildered by such temporary things. They are more or less condemned by the process of material energy.
8. Real nonviolence means freedom from envy. Real renunciation means perfect dependence on God. Every living being is dependent on someone else because he is so made. Actually everyone is dependent on the mercy of the Supreme Lord, but when one forgets his relation with the Lord, he becomes dependent on the conditions of material nature.
9. Renunciation means renouncing one’s dependence on the conditions of material nature and thus becoming completely dependent on the mercy of the Lord.
10. Real independence means complete faith in the mercy of the Lord without dependence on the conditions of matter.
11. The Age of Kali was seeking an opportunity to spoil the cultural heritage of the four orders of life, the inexperienced boy gave a chance for the Age of Kali to enter into the field of Vedic culture. Hatred of the lower orders of life began from this brāhmaṇa boy, under the influence of Kali, and thus cultural life began to dwindle day after day.
12. Śṛṅgi, a qualified son of a great brāhmaṇa, attained the required brahminical power both by birth and by training, but he was lacking in culture because he was an inexperienced boy.
13. By the influence of Kali, the son of a brāhmaṇa became puffed up with brahminical power and thus wrongly compared Mahārāja Parīkṣit to crows and watchdogs. To address him like that is the sign of a less-cultured boy.
14. Thus the downfall of the brahminical powers began as they gave importance to birthright without culture. The downfall of the brāhmaṇa caste began in the Age of Kali.

SB 2.6.10

The back of the Lord is the place for all kinds of frustration and ignorance, as well as for immorality. From His veins flow the great rivers and rivulets, and on His bones are stacked the great mountains.
CLASS NOTES: 

In order to defy the impersonal conception of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, a systematic analysis of the physiological and anatomical constitution of His transcendental body is given here. It is clear from the available description of the body of the Lord (His universal form) that the form of the Lord is distinct from the forms of ordinary mundane conception. In any case, He is never a formless void. Ignorance is the back of the Lord, and therefore the ignorance of the less intelligent class of men is also not separate from His bodily conception. Since His body is the complete whole of everything that be, one cannot assert that He is impersonal only. On the contrary, the perfect description of the Lord holds that He is both impersonal and personal simultaneously. The Personality of Godhead is the original feature of the Lord, and His impersonal emanation is but the reflection of His transcendental body. Those who are fortunate enough to have a view of the Lord from the front can realize His personal feature, whereas those who are frustrated and are thus kept on the ignorance side of the Lord, or, in other words, those who have the view of the Lord from the back, realize Him in His impersonal feature.

“Inorder to defy the impersonal conception of the lord” SP says this because 98 percent of the gurus in India are impersonalists. The ultimate cancel culture has been prevailing. Cancel Krsna, Cancel everything. The only thing accept is the impersonal Brahman. Their understanding of Brahman is wrong. For example this is my body,  Well it is something that is temporary, body is changing. When they identify themselves with something that is temporary that is wrong. The purpose of our life is to understand why we are given this temporary body.  Actually Brahma Jyothi is not impersonal, it is made infinite sparks of light which are living entities. Their understanding is wrong, everything they cancel is wrong. Their understanding is very very limited. Supreme absolute truth is understood through 3 stages. Brahman, paramatma and Bhagavan. Both impersonal and personal exist simultaneously in the Lord. They exist in us too. We have an impersonal attribute, if we own a company, CEO is the person and the company is his expansion. He is present in the company by his authority. He as a person may be present somewhere else. Whether we have a proper understanding or not is the question.

VIrat rupa description is given here. It is illusory, it is not eternal. It is necessary to bring the atheists to the conception of God. 

Modern education understands that things exist, but the understanding of the things is wrong. This is something going on in the age of kali yuga. 

SB 1.18.22

Self-controlled persons who are attached to the Supreme Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa can all of a sudden give up the world of material attachment, including the gross body and subtle mind, and go away to attain the highest perfection of the renounced order of life, by which nonviolence and renunciation are consequential.

So there is a very imp point made in the purport. Real devotees are non envious. Envy is worse than jealousy. 

Drona knew that Arjuna is going to kill him. He still taught him war skills in full. He was non envious of Arjuna. Arjuna was his favorite disciple, he was always focused on pleasing the guru and following his instructions. Drona taught him more than what he taught to his own son Ashwattama.  Duryodhana did not have the same intense focus as Arjuna. Green bird on green tree story. 

BG 2.44

In the minds of those who are too attached to sense enjoyment and material opulence, and who are bewildered by such things, the resolute determination for devotional service to the Supreme Lord does not take place.

Samādhi means “fixed mind.” The Vedic dictionary, the Nirukti, says, samyag ādhīyate ’sminn ātma-tattva-yāthātmyam: “When the mind is fixed for understanding the self, it is said to be in samādhi.” Samādhi is never possible for persons interested in material sense enjoyment and bewildered by such temporary things. They are more or less condemned by the process of material energy.

The real solution to all prejudice, discrimination is to see everyone as the soul part and parcel of the lord. 

SB 1.18.22

Real nonviolence means freedom from envy. In this world everyone is envious of his fellow being. But a perfect paramahaṁsa, being completely given up to the service of the Lord, is perfectly nonenvious. He loves every living being in relation with the Supreme Lord. Real renunciation means perfect dependence on God. Every living being is dependent on someone else because he is so made. Actually everyone is dependent on the mercy of the Supreme Lord, but when one forgets his relation with the Lord, he becomes dependent on the conditions of material nature. Renunciation means renouncing one’s dependence on the conditions of material nature and thus becoming completely dependent on the mercy of the Lord. Real independence means complete faith in the mercy of the Lord without dependence on the conditions of matter. This paramahaṁsa stage is the highest perfectional stage in bhakti-yoga, the process of devotional service to the Supreme Lord.

SB 1.18.32

Real experience means – sikshashtakam prayers of Caitanya Mahaprabhu

Culture of Modern education – sense gratification

Culture of KC – I want to use my senses in the service of the lord.

The sage had a son who was very powerful, being a brāhmaṇa’s son. While he was playing with inexperienced boys, he heard of his father’s distress, which was occasioned by the King. Then and there the boy spoke as follows.

Due to Mahārāja Parīkṣit’s good government, even a boy of tender age, who was playing with other inexperienced boys, could become as powerful as a qualified brāhmaṇa. This boy was known as Śṛṅgi, and he achieved good training in brahmacarya by his father so that he could be as powerful as a brāhmaṇa, even at that age. But because the Age of Kali was seeking an opportunity to spoil the cultural heritage of the four orders of life, the inexperienced boy gave a chance for the Age of Kali to enter into the field of Vedic culture. Hatred of the lower orders of life began from this brāhmaṇa boy, under the influence of Kali, and thus cultural life began to dwindle day after day. The first victim of brahminical injustice was Mahārāja Parīkṣit, and thus the protection given by the King against the onslaught of Kali was slackened.

SB 1.18.33

The brāhmaṇas are considered to be the head and brains of the social body, and the kṣatriyas are considered to be the arms of the social body. The arms are required to protect the body from all harm, but the arms must act according to the directions of the head and brain. That is a natural arrangement made by the supreme order, for it is confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā that four social orders or castes, namely the brāhmaṇas, the kṣatriyas, the vaiśyas and the śūdras, are set up according to quality and work done by them. Naturally the son of a brāhmaṇa has a good chance to become a brāhmaṇa by the direction of his qualified father, as a son of a medical practitioner has a very good chance to become a qualified medical practitioner. So the caste system is quite scientific. The son must take advantage of the father’s qualification and thus become a brāhmaṇa or medical practitioner, and not otherwise. Without being qualified, one cannot become a brāhmaṇa or medical practitioner, and that is the verdict of all scriptures and social orders. Herein Śṛṅgi, a qualified son of a great brāhmaṇa, attained the required brahminical power both by birth and by training, but he was lacking in culture because he was an inexperienced boy. By the influence of Kali, the son of a brāhmaṇa became puffed up with brahminical power and thus wrongly compared Mahārāja Parīkṣit to crows and watchdogs. The King is certainly the watchdog of the state in the sense that he keeps vigilant eyes over the border of the state for its protection and defense, but to address him as a watchdog is the sign of a less-cultured boy. Thus the downfall of the brahminical powers began as they gave importance to birthright without culture. The downfall of the brāhmaṇa caste began in the Age of Kali. And since brāhmaṇas are the heads of the social order, all other orders of society also began to deteriorate. This beginning of brahminical deterioration was highly deplored by the father of Śṛṅgi, as we will find.

In kali yuga, People see things they have a name for it, but their understanding about it is wrong. Sringi knew that King Praikshit is the best King of the world and his understanding of Pariskhit is wrong and compares him to crows and watchdogs..characterizes him to be a low-class person lower to Brahmanas. 

SB 1.18.34 

The inexperienced brāhmaṇa boy certainly knew that the King asked for water from his father and the father did not respond. He tried to explain away his father’s inhospitality in an impertinent manner befitting an uncultured boy. He was not at all sorry for the King’s not being well received. On the contrary, he justified the wrong act in a way characteristic of the brāhmaṇas of Kali-yuga. He compared the King to a watchdog, and so it was wrong for the King to enter the home of a brāhmaṇa and ask for water from the same pot. The dog is certainly reared by its master, but that does not mean that the dog shall claim to dine and drink from the same pot. This mentality of false prestige is the cause of the downfall of the perfect social order, and we can see that in the beginning it was started by the inexperienced son of a brāhmaṇa. As the dog is never allowed to enter within the room and hearth, although it is reared by the master, similarly, according to Śṛṅgi, the King had no right to enter the house of Śamīka Ṛṣi. According to the boy’s opinion, the King was on the wrong side and not his father, and thus he justified his silent father.

Classless society is possible in KC because they all cooperate without any envy.. 

Brahmana is also a reformative order. They all cooperate to make spiritual progress. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM HH HARIVILAS MAHARAJ’S MORNING BHAGAVATAM CLASS ON SB 2.6.9:

1. Definition of 90 percent of the population in today’s world – A demoniac person, being always against God’s supremacy, does not like to believe in the scriptures. He is envious of both the scriptures and the existence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This is caused by his so-called prestige and his accumulation of wealth and strength.
2. He does not know that the present life is a preparation for the next life. Not knowing this, he is actually envious of his own self, as well as of others. He commits violence on other bodies and on his own.
3. He does not care for the supreme control of the Personality of Godhead, because he has no knowledge. Being envious of the scriptures and the Supreme Personality of Godhead, he puts forward false arguments against the existence of God and denies the scriptural authority.
4. He thinks himself independent and powerful in every action. He thinks that since no one can equal him in strength, power or wealth, he can act in any way and no one can stop him. If he has an enemy who might check the advancement of his sensual activities, he makes plans to cut him down by his own power.
5. BG 7.3 – Out of many thousands among men, one may endeavor for perfection, and of those who have achieved perfection, hardly one knows Me in truth.
6. By diverting attention to so many unwanted things, human energy is spoiled without achievement of spiritual realization, the prime necessity of human life. 
7. The attempt to reach the moon is another example of spoiling energy because even if the moon is reached, the problems of life will not be solved. 
8. The devotees of the Lord are called akiñcanas because they have practically no material assets. Such material assets are all products of the three modes of material nature. They foil spiritual energy, and thus the less we possess such products of material nature, the more we have a good chance for spiritual progress.
9. The material disease is due to hankering after and lording it over material nature. This hankering is due to an interaction of the three modes of nature, and neither the Lord nor the devotees have attachment for such false enjoyment.
10.  The perfect nivṛtta-guṇa-vṛtti is the Supreme Lord because He never becomes attracted by the modes of material nature, whereas the living beings have such a tendency. Some of them are entrapped by the illusory attraction of material nature.
11. Because the Lord is the property of the devotees, and the devotees are the property of the Lord reciprocally, the devotees are certainly transcendental to the modes of material nature. That is a natural conclusion. 
12. Such unalloyed devotees are distinct from the mixed devotees who approach the Lord for mitigation of miseries and poverty or because of inquisitiveness and speculation. The unalloyed devotees and the Lord are transcendentally attached to one another. For others, the Lord has nothing to reciprocate, and therefore He is called ātmārāma, self-satisfied. 
13. Only the self-controlled can gradually be attached to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Self-controlled means not indulging in sense enjoyment more than is necessary. And those who are not self-controlled are given over to sense enjoyment.
14. Dry philosophical speculation is a subtle sense of enjoyment of the mind. Sense enjoyment leads one to the path of darkness.
15. Self-control is actually achieved not by artificially stopping the senses from material enjoyment, but by becoming factually attached to the Supreme Lord by engaging one’s unalloyed senses in the transcendental service of the Lord.
16. This perfectional stage of sense engagement is called bhakti-yoga. So those who are attached to the means of bhakti-yoga are factually self-controlled and can all of a sudden give up their homely or bodily attachment for the service of the Lord.
17. This is called the paramahaṁsa stage. Paramahaṁsas are naturally qualified with all the good attributes, such as pridelessness, freedom from vanity, nonviolence, tolerance, simplicity, respectability, worship, devotion and sincerity. All these godly qualities exist in the devotee of the Lord spontaneously.
18. Such paramahaṁsas, who are completely given up to the service of the Lord, are very rare. They are very rare even amongst the liberated souls. Real nonviolence means freedom from envy. In this world, everyone is envious of his fellow being. But a perfect paramahaṁsa, being completely given up to the service of the Lord, is perfectly non envious. He loves every living being in relation to the Supreme Lord.
19. Real renunciation means perfect dependence on God. Every living being is dependent on someone else because he is so made. Actually, everyone is dependent on the mercy of the Supreme Lord, but when one forgets his relation with the Lord, he becomes dependent on the conditions of material nature.
20. Renunciation means renouncing one’s dependence on the conditions of material nature and thus becoming completely dependent on the mercy of the Lord. Real independence means complete faith in the mercy of the Lord without dependence on the conditions of matter.
    
    

SB 2.6.9 TRANSLATION:

O Nārada, the evacuating outlet of the universal form of the Lord is the abode of the controlling deity of death, Mitra, and the evacuating hole and the rectum of the Lord is the place of envy, misfortune, death, hell, etc.

CLASS NOTES:

This is further explained in BG 

BG 16.18 – Good definition of over 90 percent of the population

Bewildered by false ego, strength, pride, lust and anger, the demons become envious of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is situated in their own bodies and in the bodies of others, and blaspheme against the real religion.

We have to think about the purport that SP has brought to us today – 

A demoniac person, being always against God’s supremacy, does not like to believe in the scriptures. He is envious of both the scriptures and the existence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This is caused by his so-called prestige and his accumulation of wealth and strength. He does not know that the present life is a preparation for the next life. Not knowing this, he is actually envious of his own self, as well as of others. He commits violence on other bodies and on his own. He does not care for the supreme control of the Personality of Godhead, because he has no knowledge. Being envious of the scriptures and the Supreme Personality of Godhead, he puts forward false arguments against the existence of God and denies the scriptural authority. He thinks himself independent and powerful in every action. He thinks that since no one can equal him in strength, power or wealth, he can act in any way and no one can stop him. If he has an enemy who might check the advancement of his sensual activities, he makes plans to cut him down by his own power.

Now we understand the origin of nervousness. Everything has its origin from Krsna. We were originally with Krsna and we were envious of Him and we were sent to the prison-house – the material world. We are like the Australian criminals banished by England to an island surrounded by water. We are sent to this material world surrounded by our material body. We are entangled by our false ego, subject to birth, death, old age, and disease. We think all this is normal. 99 percent of the population is in the illusion that they are this body.  I am Indian, I am USA, I am homosexual, I am eastern Washingtonian. All these crazy ideas which are never true are believed to be true (illusion). Summarize the material world as a constant search for one’s own identity. Example – Baseball hat. They change the positions. Each position of the baseball hat was an identity.. Each one of the self-identities is wrong as it identifies with the body. Only when you meet a pure devotee you will know your identity… jivera swarup hai krsnera das… Only very very few people know their identity… 

BG 7.3

Manushyanam Sahasresu

Out of many thousands among men, one may endeavor for perfection, and of those who have achieved perfection, hardly one knows Me in truth.

One time a couple is discussing the caskets.. Which casket they like.. The casket is a representation of the attachment to material body. There are caskets ranging from 100 dollars to millions of dollars.

SB 1.8.27 

​​Advancement of material vision or material civilization is a great stumbling block for spiritual advancement. Such material advancement entangles the living being in the bondage of a material body followed by all sorts of material miseries. Such material advancement is called anartha, or things not wanted. Actually this is so. In the present context of material advancement one uses lipstick at a cost of fifty cents, and there are so many unwanted things which are all products of the material conception of life.By diverting attention to so many unwanted things, human energy is spoiled without achievement of spiritual realization, the prime necessity of human life. The attempt to reach the moon is another example of spoiling energy because even if the moon is reached, the problems of life will not be solved. The devotees of the Lord are called akiñcanas because they have practically no material assets. Such material assets are all products of the three modes of material nature. They foil spiritual energy, and thus the less we possess such products of material nature, the more we have a good chance for spiritual progress.

The material disease is due to hankering after and lording it over material nature. This hankering is due to an interaction of the three modes of nature, and neither the Lord nor the devotees have attachment for such false enjoyment. Therefore, the Lord and the devotees are called nivṛtta-guṇa-vṛtti. The perfect nivṛtta-guṇa-vṛtti is the Supreme Lord because He never becomes attracted by the modes of material nature, whereas the living beings have such a tendency. Some of them are entrapped by the illusory attraction of material nature.

Today everyone is glorifying lust. Everyone has pure soul it gets contaminated by the false ego and the material modes..

Because the Lord is the property of the devotees, and the devotees are the property of the Lord reciprocally, the devotees are certainly transcendental to the modes of material nature. That is a natural conclusion. Such unalloyed devotees are distinct from the mixed devotees who approach the Lord for mitigation of miseries and poverty or because of inquisitiveness and speculation. The unalloyed devotees and the Lord are transcendentally attached to one another. For others, the Lord has nothing to reciprocate, and therefore He is called ātmārāma, self-satisfied. Self-satisfied as He is, He is the master of all monists who seek to merge into the existence of the Lord. Such monists merge within the personal effulgence of the Lord called the brahmajyoti, but the devotees enter into the transcendental pastimes of the Lord, which are never to be misunderstood as material.

Radha Raman temple descendant came to Maharaj in Paris and stayed with him. He would do puja every day in the morning. He was the blood descendant of Gopala Bhatta Goswami. He had a picture of Chaitanya Maha Prabhu. It was very special. There is one thing that I own – That white spot on the picture of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is the cloth given by lord Chaitanya to Gopala Bhatta Goswami and it was given to me by my grandfathers… That is the only thing I own. Even my body is Radha Ramanas. We can read and understand, we need to act on it. 

SB 1.10.32 – asuras are envious of the lord 

Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira, although no one’s enemy, engaged four divisions of defense [horse, elephant, chariot and army] to accompany Lord Kṛṣṇa, the enemy of the asuras [demons]. The Mahārāja did this because of the enemy, and also out of affection for the Lord.

SB 1.18.32 – imp verse which talks about the hatred of lower orders of life

This boy was known as Śṛṅgi, and he achieved good training in brahmacarya by his father so that he could be as powerful as a brāhmaṇa, even at that age. But because the Age of Kali was seeking an opportunity to spoil the cultural heritage of the four orders of life, the inexperienced boy gave a chance for the Age of Kali to enter into the field of Vedic culture. Hatred of the lower orders of life began from this brāhmaṇa boy, under the influence of Kali, and thus cultural life began to dwindle day after day. The first victim of brahminical injustice was Mahārāja Parīkṣit, and thus the protection given by the King against the onslaught of Kali was slackened.

Ramanujacharya’s wife  Example – Story of throwing away the food remnants of Ramanujacharya’s Shiksha guru who was sudra. 

Instead of  Guna karma they changed it to janma karma vibhaghasah

SB 1.18.22

Only the self-controlled can gradually be attached to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Self-controlled means not indulging in sense enjoyment more than is necessary. And those who are not self-controlled are given over to sense enjoyment. Dry philosophical speculation is a subtle sense of enjoyment of the mind. Sense enjoyment leads one to the path of darkness. Those who are self-controlled can make progress on the path of liberation from the conditional life of material existence. The Vedas, therefore, enjoin that one should not go on the path of darkness but should make a progressive march towards the path of light or liberation. 

Self-control is actually achieved not by artificially stopping the senses from material enjoyment, but by becoming factually attached to the Supreme Lord by engaging one’s unalloyed senses in the transcendental service of the Lord. The senses cannot be forcibly curbed, but they can be given proper engagement. Purified senses, therefore, are always engaged in the transcendental service of the Lord. This perfectional stage of sense engagement is called bhakti-yoga. So those who are attached to the means of bhakti-yoga are factually self-controlled and can all of a sudden give up their homely or bodily attachment for the service of the Lord. This is called the paramahaṁsa stage. Haṁsas, or swans, accept only milk out of a mixture of milk and water. Similarly, those who accept the service of the Lord instead of māyā’s service are called the paramahaṁsas. They are naturally qualified with all the good attributes, such as pridelessness, freedom from vanity, nonviolence, tolerance, simplicity, respectability, worship, devotion and sincerity. All these godly qualities exist in the devotee of the Lord spontaneously. Such paramahaṁsas, who are completely given up to the service of the Lord, are very rare. They are very rare even amongst the liberated souls. Real nonviolence means freedom from envy. In this world everyone is envious of his fellow being. But a perfect paramahaṁsa, being completely given up to the service of the Lord, is perfectly nonenvious. He loves every living being in relation with the Supreme Lord. Real renunciation means perfect dependence on God. Every living being is dependent on someone else because he is so made. Actually everyone is dependent on the mercy of the Supreme Lord, but when one forgets his relation with the Lord, he becomes dependent on the conditions of material nature. Renunciation means renouncing one’s dependence on the conditions of material nature and thus becoming completely dependent on the mercy of the Lord. Real independence means complete faith in the mercy of the Lord without dependence on the conditions of matter. This paramahaṁsa stage is the highest perfectional stage in bhakti-yoga, the process of devotional service to the Supreme Lord.

1928 – Stock market collapse many people committed suicide by jumping from the high rise building because they were completely dependant on the stock market. When a person is dependant on the material nature, everything they collected becomes zero they commit suicide. 

1. A devotee is non envious because he sees everyone equally and he sees himself as a servant and everyone else as Prabhu..  “Dharma pro… nimatsaranam satam…”
2. The viscous competition that happens in this world for existence is very dangerous, we need to be careful. A devotee does not participate in the competition. 
3. Wherever there is envy there is the misfortune

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM HH HARIVILAS MAHARAJ’S MORNING BHAGAVATAM CLASS ON SB 2.6.8:

1. One would cease to generate altogether if there were not, by the grace of the Lord, a coating, a pleasure-giving substance, on the surface of the generative organs. This substance gives a pleasure so intense that it counteracts fully the distress of family encumbrances. 
2. A person is so captivated by this pleasure-giving substance that he is not satisfied by begetting a single child, but increases the number of children, with great risk in regard to maintaining them, simply for this pleasure-giving substance. 
3. This pleasure-giving substance is not false, however, because it originates from the transcendental body of the Lord. In other words, the pleasure-giving substance is a reality, but it has taken on an aspect of pervertedness on account of material contamination. 
4. In the material world, sex life is the cause of many distresses on account of material contact. Therefore, the sex life in the material world should not be encouraged beyond the necessity. 
5. There is a necessity for generating progeny even in the material world, but such generation of children must be carried out with full responsibility for spiritual values. 
6. The degraded form of family restriction by use of contraceptives, etc., is the grossest type of material contamination. Materialists who use these devices want to fully utilize the pleasure potency of the coating on the genitals by artificial means, without knowing the spiritual importance.
7. And without knowledge of spiritual values, the less intelligent man tries to utilize only the material sense of pleasure of the genitals.
8. The Lord is great, and living beings are subordinate to Him. Therefore, the duty of the living being is just to serve Him only. Unfortunately, the illusioned living beings, out of misunderstanding only, become servants of the senses by material desire. This desire is called avidyā, or nescience.
9. And out of such desire the living being makes different plans for material enjoyment centered about a perverted sex life. He therefore becomes entangled in the chain of birth and death by transmigrating into different bodies on different planets under the direction of the Supreme Lord.
10. Unless one is beyond the boundary of this nescience, one cannot get free from the threefold miseries of material life. That is the law of nature.
11. The path of salvation or the path going back to Godhead always forbids the association of women, and the complete sanātana-dharma or varṇāśrama-dharma scheme forbids or restricts association with women.
12. The activities of the world are being carried on by the central attraction of male and female. A male is searching after a mate to his liking, and the female is looking after a suitable male.
13. And as soon as a male is combined with a female, the material bondage of the living being is at once tightly interlocked by sex relation, and as a result of this, both the male’s and female’s attraction for sweet home, motherland, bodily offspring, society and friendship and accumulation of wealth becomes the illusory field of activities, and thus a false but indefatigable attraction for the temporary material existence, which is full of miseries, is manifest.
14. It is said in the Manu-smṛti that lust cannot be satisfied by any amount of sense enjoyment, just as fire is never extinguished by a constant supply of fuel.
15. The advancement of material civilization on the basis of sense gratification means increasing the duration of the material existence of a living entity. Therefore, this lust is the symbol of ignorance by which the living entity is kept within the material world. While one enjoys sense gratification, it may be that there is some feeling of happiness, but actually, that so-called feeling of happiness is the ultimate enemy of the sense enjoyer.
16. The positive part is – Lust is only the perverted reflection of the love of God which is natural for every living entity. But if one is educated in Kṛṣṇa consciousness from the very beginning, that natural love of God cannot deteriorate into lust. 
17. When love of God deteriorates into lust, it is very difficult to return to normal condition. Nonetheless, Kṛṣṇa consciousness is so powerful that even a late beginner can become a lover of God by following the regulative principles of devotional service. 
18. So, from any stage of life, or from the time of understanding its urgency, one can begin regulating the senses in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, devotional service of the Lord, and turn the lust into love of Godhead – the highest perfectional stage of human life.
    
    

SB 2.6.8

From the Lord’s genitals originate water, semen, generatives, rains and the procreators. His genitals are the cause of a pleasure that counteracts the distress of begetting.

CLASS NOTES: 

The genitals and the pleasure of begetting counteract the distresses of family encumbrances. One would cease to generate altogether if there were not, by the grace of the Lord, a coating, a pleasure-giving substance, on the surface of the generative organs. This substance gives a pleasure so intense that it counteracts fully the distress of family encumbrances. A person is so captivated by this pleasure-giving substance that he is not satisfied by begetting a single child, but increases the number of children, with great risk in regard to maintaining them, simply for this pleasure-giving substance. This pleasure-giving substance is not false, however, because it originates from the transcendental body of the Lord. In other words, the pleasure-giving substance is a reality, but it has taken on an aspect of pervertedness on account of material contamination. In the material world, sex life is the cause of many distresses on account of material contact. Therefore, the sex life in the material world should not be encouraged beyond the necessity. There is a necessity for generating progeny even in the material world, but such generation of children must be carried out with full responsibility for spiritual values. The spiritual values of life can be realized in the human form of material existence, and the human being must adopt family planning with reference to the context of spiritual values, and not otherwise. The degraded form of family restriction by use of contraceptives, etc., is the grossest type of material contamination. Materialists who use these devices want to fully utilize the pleasure potency of the coating on the genitals by artificial means, without knowing the spiritual importance. And without knowledge of spiritual values, the less intelligent man tries to utilize only the material sense of pleasure of the genitals.

This explains What keeps us in this material world birth after birth. Subject to laws of nature. When we become envious of Krishna we cannot stay in the spiritual world.  We are placed in the material world through 6 stages governed by the laws of material nature – 

Born, grows, stays, by-products, dwindles, dies. This is inevitable.

Our real identity is to be the eternal servant of Krsna. If we ignore this we are put into the cycle of birth and death. This is unending as long as we engage in mundane sexual activities.

The completion of the sexual act – is to educate the result of it the child about God-consciousness and help them lead a KC life and not contaminate them with modern education and work for these big companies like slaves and have no time for KC. Outsourcing has ruined lives in India. Just to make more money by working in high-tech companies in Bangalore.. They completely ignore spiritual life or they go to phony gurus who give solutions for becoming efficient at work..

SB 1.8.35

The Lord is great, and living beings are subordinate to Him. Therefore, the duty of the living being is just to serve Him only. Unfortunately, the illusioned living beings, out of misunderstanding only, become servants of the senses by material desire. This desire is called avidyā, or nescience. And out of such desire the living being makes different plans for material enjoyment centered about a perverted sex life. He therefore becomes entangled in the chain of birth and death by transmigrating into different bodies on different planets under the direction of the Supreme Lord. Unless, therefore, one is beyond the boundary of this nescience, one cannot get free from the threefold miseries of material life. That is the law of nature.

We are continuously placed in this world due to the influence of material modes. We are completely harassed by the fluctuating modes of material nature. They are never actually pure. Even the mode of goodness is not pure. We go over and over again modes of material nature. Everything we do we are forced to do. We are breathing, blinking eyes, we want to reproduce all these are forced upon us. 

Unless we come in contact with a pure devotee, a spiritual master we will not come out of the modes. But the issue is most of the so-called spiritual masters, Brahmanas are not pure.  Doing this puja and that puja one can advance materially this is what they are advocating. Unless we remove the envy for the lord and go beyond this material world we continue in this cycle of birth and death. Doing puja for material benefit is not the goal of life, that is described in Bhagavad gita. 

BG 18.5

Acts of sacrifice, charity, and penance are not to be given up; they must be performed. Indeed, sacrifice, charity, and penance purify even the great souls.

All prescribed sacrifices are meant for achieving the Supreme Lord. Therefore, in the lower stages, they should not be given up. Similarly, charity is for the purification of the heart. If the charity is given to suitable persons, as described previously, it leads one to advanced spiritual life.

BG 18.6

All these activities should be performed without attachment or any expectation of result. They should be performed as a matter of duty, O son of Pṛthā. That is My final opinion.

Although all sacrifices are purifying, one should not expect any result by such performances. In other words, all sacrifices which are meant for material advancement in life should be given up, but sacrifices that purify one’s existence and elevate one to the spiritual plane should not be stopped. Everything that leads to Kṛṣṇa consciousness must be encouraged. In the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam also it is said that any activity which leads to devotional service to the Lord should be accepted. That is the highest criterion of religion. A devotee of the Lord should accept any kind of work, sacrifice or charity which will help him in the discharge of devotional service to the Lord.

The difference between, Sacriice for material benefit and sacrifice for spiritual benefit is “Mama”

means the result of this sacrifice is for me. (Health, Wealth, business.. ) All these activities keep you in the material world, this is a curse by the modern Brahmanas to the people. It is not a benediction. Why do Brahmanas do this, they do this for money, it is a transaction, You give me money I will do puja by which you get money.  This is a curse. The purpose of human life is to be liberated from human life. If a husband and wife decide to be Krsna Conscious and produce children and teach them to be God-conscious. That is the duty. The goal of this temple is to teach people to serve the Lord. Everyone has an equal chance to develop a spiritual life and eventually go back to godhead. 

Civilized Human Being – Engaged in the quest of understanding how they got into this situation and studies vedas to learn it. BG and SB are the texts to read. BG is the quintessential text. Summarized into 2 imp verses – 

• Daivehesa gunamayi…. BG7.14 . What is impossible to do is possible to do with the surrender to the lord. 
• BG 18.66  – just give up all fabricated dharmas, surrender unto Me. That is the whole message of BG. All bonafide spiritual texts are questions and answers. These are all fundamental questions. Pain and suffering is the main theme of the material world. and the living entity is questioning. At the end of their life, most people are lamenting. 

In SB is explained. 

SB 1.11.36 

Although the queens’ beautiful smiles and furtive glances were all spotless and exciting, and although they could conquer Cupid himself by making him give up his bow in frustration, and although even the tolerant Śiva could fall victim to them, still, despite all their magical feats and attractions, they could not agitate the senses of the Lord.

The path of salvation or the path going back to Godhead always forbids the association of women, and the complete sanātana-dharma or varṇāśrama-dharma scheme forbids or restricts association with women. How then can one be accepted as the Supreme Personality of Godhead who is addicted to more than sixteen thousand wives? This question may be relevantly raised by inquisitive persons really anxious to know about the transcendental nature of the Supreme Lord. And to answer such questions, the sages at Naimiṣāraṇya have discussed the transcendental character of the Lord in this and in following verses. It is clear herein that the feminine attractive features which can conquer Cupid or even the supermost tolerant Lord Śiva could not conquer the senses of the Lord. Cupid’s business is to invoke mundane lust. The whole universe is moving, being agitated by Cupid’s arrow. The activities of the world are being carried on by the central attraction of male and female. A male is searching after a mate to his liking, and the female is looking after a suitable male. That is the way of material stimulus. And as soon as a male is combined with a female, the material bondage of the living being is at once tightly interlocked by sex relation, and as a result of this, both the male’s and female’s attraction for sweet home, motherland, bodily offspring, society and friendship and accumulation of wealth becomes the illusory field of activities, and thus a false but indefatigable attraction for the temporary material existence, which is full of miseries, is manifest.

We have only 2 choices. That is the limit of our free will –

1. Accept to follow instructions of Krsna –
2. Refuse to follow instructions of Krsna – completely illusioned, working like asses, suffering all kinds of miseries, but accepting miseries because there is some pleasure in the sex life.

One who is intelligent should see why they are suffering and make a choice to get liberated from this bondage by accepting His instructions.

BG 18.73

arjuna uvāca
naṣṭo mohaḥ smṛtir labdhā
tvat-prasādān mayācyuta
sthito ’smi gata-sandehaḥ
kariṣye vacanaṁ tava

Arjuna said: My dear Kṛṣṇa, O infallible one, my illusion is now gone. I have regained my memory by Your mercy. I am now firm and free from doubt and am prepared to act according to Your instructions.

Arjuna is saying – That is your real prasad Krsna… I am going to do whatever you instruct Krsna. That is the correct use of our free will  – to follow the instructions of Krsna. 

BG 3.39

Thus the wise living entity’s pure consciousness becomes covered by his eternal enemy in the form of lust, which is never satisfied and which burns like fire.
It is said in the Manu-smṛti that lust cannot be satisfied by any amount of sense enjoyment, just as fire is never extinguished by a constant supply of fuel. 

#metoo is an example for this. Millions of women are exploited by these powerful men

In the material world, the center of all activities is sex, and thus this material world is called maithunya-āgāra, or the shackles of sex life. In the ordinary prison-house, criminals are kept within bars; similarly, the criminals who are disobedient to the laws of the Lord are shackled by sex life. The advancement of material civilization on the basis of sense gratification means increasing the duration of the material existence of a living entity. Therefore, this lust is the symbol of ignorance by which the living entity is kept within the material world. While one enjoys sense gratification, it may be that there is some feeling of happiness, but actually, that so-called feeling of happiness is the ultimate enemy of the sense enjoyer.

The Positive part is – Lust is the perverted reflection of the love of God. It is mentioned in BG 3.41

BG 3.41

Lust is only the perverted reflection of the love of God which is natural for every living entity. But if one is educated in Kṛṣṇa consciousness from the very beginning, that natural love of God cannot deteriorate into lust. 

Mother and father control their own lusty desires. Work with their children to control their lusty desires. The lusty desires begin from puberty.. 

When love of God deteriorates into lust, it is very difficult to return to normal condition. Nonetheless, Kṛṣṇa consciousness is so powerful that even a late beginner can become a lover of God by following the regulative principles of devotional service. 

Animals cannot be regulated. Humans can be regulated. Regulative principles – 4 dos and donts. 

So, from any stage of life, or from the time of understanding its urgency, one can begin regulating the senses in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, devotional service of the Lord, and turn the lust into love of Godhead – the highest perfectional stage of human life.

Animals cannot do this, they do not have the intelligence or the body to do it. 

Human beings can engage in Tapasya – voluntary renunciation of negative things and voluntary acceptance of positive things. Eating, mating, sleeping and defending is animalistic life. Chanting, hearing SB, BG asking questions, engaging in dev service are the regulated activities of a person who is on the fast track to go back to Godhead.  

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM HH HARIVILAS MAHARAJ’S MORNING BHAGAVATAM CLASS ON SB 2.6.7 TODAY (07/25/21):

1. For absolute protection from all sorts of fear, as well as for all our needs of life, we must take shelter of the lotus feet of the Lord, not only in this planet but also in all the upper, lower and heavenly planets.
2. This absolute dependence on the lotus feet of the Lord is called pure devotional service, and it is directly hinted at within this passage.
3. No one should have any kind of doubt in this matter, nor should one be inclined to seek the help of any other demigods, because all of them are dependent on Him only.
4. Everyone, except the Lord Himself, is dependent on the mercy of the Lord; even the all-pervading Supersoul is also dependent on the supreme aspect of Bhagavān, the Personality of Godhead.
5. Anything that does not lead to the perfectional stage of Kṛṣṇa consciousness should be avoided. One should be confident that in all circumstances Kṛṣṇa will protect him from all difficulties. 
6. The pure devotee does not have to worry about the material necessities of life; he need not be anxious, because when he removes the darkness from his heart, everything is provided automatically by the Supreme Lord, who is pleased by the loving devotional service of the devotee. This is the essence of the teachings of Bhagavad-gītā.
7. By studying Bhagavad-gītā, one can become a soul completely surrendered to the Supreme Lord and engage himself in pure devotional service. As the Lord takes charge, one becomes completely free from all kinds of materialistic endeavors.
8. A pure devotee is never deviated from the service of the Lord, despite all difficulties and impediments offered by the illusory energy. Generally, men who have wealth and opulence are famous, but Bali Mahārāja became famous for all time by being deprived of all his possessions. 
9. As the first installment of His special favor, the Lord takes away all the possessions of His devotee. A devotee, however, is never disturbed by such a loss. He continues his service, and the Lord amply rewards him, beyond the expectations of any common man.
10. When a man gives up all varieties of desire for sense gratification, which arise from mental concoction, and when his mind, thus purified, finds satisfaction in the self alone, then he is said to be in pure transcendental consciousness.
11. “Devotees solely engaged in the devotional service of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Nārāyaṇa, never fear any condition of life. For them the heavenly planets, liberation and the hellish planets are all the same, for such devotees are interested only in the service of the Lord.” 
12. A devotee engaged in the service of Nārāyaṇa is always in equilibrium. A devotee actually lives transcendentally. Although he may appear to have gone to hell or heaven, he does not live in either place; rather, he always lives in Vaikuṇṭha
13. A devotee does not live alone. Of course, everyone lives with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but because the devotee is engaged in His service, he actually does not live in any material condition
14. Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura prays to take birth as an insignificant insect in the association of devotees. Because devotees are engaged in the service of the Lord, anyone who lives with them also lives in Vaikuṇṭha.
15. Everything belongs to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and no one else possesses anything. This is the real fact
16. A devotee always lives with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, engaging in His service, and therefore he is always transcendental to hellish or heavenly residences.
17. Every devotee in Kṛṣṇa consciousness should always be afraid of the common man engaged in pursuing material prosperity.
18. Those who are completely established in Kṛṣṇa conscious philosophy and who therefore understand the aim of life will never take to the activities of the materialistic dog race. But if a sincere devotee somehow does fall down, the Lord corrects him and saves him from gliding down to the darkest region of hellish life.
19. Bali Mahārāja appreciated how the Lord had saved him from such a bewildered life of ignorance. He therefore said that his intelligence had been stunned. He could not understand how the Supreme Personality of Godhead favors His devotees by forcibly stopping their materialistic activities.
20. Success or no success, a Kṛṣṇa conscious person is always steady in his determination.
21. When the Supreme Personality of Godhead deprives His devotee of material opulences, this does not mean that the Lord puts him into poverty; rather, the Lord promotes him to a higher position
22. By the association of devotees, the demoniac mentality is vanquished.
23. When a demon associates with devotees engaged in glorifying the Supreme Personality of Godhead, he gradually becomes a pure devotee.

SB 2.6.7 TRANSLATION: 

Thus the forward steps of the Lord are the shelter for the upper, lower and heavenly planets, as well as for all that we need. His lotus feet serve as protection from all kinds of fear.

CLASS NOTES: 

For absolute protection from all sorts of fear, as well as for all our needs of life, we must take shelter of the lotus feet of the Lord, not only in this planet but also in all the upper, lower and heavenly planets. This absolute dependence on the lotus feet of the Lord is called pure devotional service, and it is directly hinted at within this passage. No one should have any kind of doubt in this matter, nor should one be inclined to seek the help of any other demigods, because all of them are dependent on Him only. Everyone, except the Lord Himself, is dependent on the mercy of the Lord; even the all-pervading Supersoul is also dependent on the supreme aspect of Bhagavān, the Personality of Godhead.

This is an extremely important verse, the whole life and the practice of KC depends on the understanding of this verse. In BG Sarva dharman parityajya.. We don’t need anything else other than Krsna’s Mercy… Anukulyena Sankalpasya..The lord is promising the protection of His devotee. Devotees are absolutely sure of the protection from the Lord. If we waiver in that faith we fall down. Everyone is tested by Maya and also by Krsna Himself.

We can die any moment, that is the reality of the material world. Therefore the devotee understanding this, he accepts the verse “Aham sarva papebhyo…moksa..” He knows that Lord is going to protect us in the most difficult situation.

BG 18.66

One may perform a particular occupational duty according to his position in the social order, but if by executing his duty one does not come to the point of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, all his activities are in vain. Anything that does not lead to the perfectional stage of Kṛṣṇa consciousness should be avoided. One should be confident that in all circumstances Kṛṣṇa will protect him from all difficulties. There is no need of thinking how one should keep the body and soul together. Kṛṣṇa will see to that. One should always think himself as helpless and should consider Kṛṣṇa the only basis for his progress in life. As soon as one seriously engages himself in devotional service to the Lord in full Kṛṣṇa consciousness, at once he becomes freed from all contamination of material natur

BG 10.11
The pure devotee does not have to worry about the material necessities of life; he need not be anxious, because when he removes the darkness from his heart, everything is provided automatically by the Supreme Lord, who is pleased by the loving devotional service of the devotee. This is the essence of the teachings of Bhagavad-gītā. By studying Bhagavad-gītā, one can become a soul completely surrendered to the Supreme Lord and engage himself in pure devotional service. As the Lord takes charge, one becomes completely free from all kinds of materialistic endeavors.

This is the point, when Prabhupada, surrendered by giving up everything, that is how the movement dynamically grew.  Maharaj Says – “I had a 4 years scholarship to get a master’s degree and I gave it up and started sankirtan going on streets. Sometimes relatives in France used to see me on the streets and shake their heads and say what a waste and they made faces and say you are crazy, That did not deter me” 

This is further explained in SB 8th canto. 

SB 8.21.28

O King, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Vāmanadeva, then spoke to Bali Mahārāja, the most liberal and celebrated personality whom He had arrested with the ropes of Varuṇa. Bali Mahārāja had lost all bodily luster, but he was nonetheless fixed in his determination.

When one is bereft of all his possessions, he is certainly reduced in bodily luster. But although Bali Mahārāja had lost everything, he was fixed in his determination to satisfy Vāmanadeva, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In Bhagavad-gītā, such a person is called sthita-prajña. A pure devotee is never deviated from the service of the Lord, despite all difficulties and impediments offered by the illusory energy. Generally men who have wealth and opulence are famous, but Bali Mahārāja became famous for all time by being deprived of all his possessions. This is the special mercy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead toward His devotees. The Lord says, yasyāham anugṛhṇāmi hariṣye tad-dhanaṁ śanaiḥ. As the first installment of His special favor, the Lord takes away all the possessions of His devotee. A devotee, however, is never disturbed by such a loss. He continues his service, and the Lord amply rewards him, beyond the expectations of any common man.

(BG 2.55) Sthitha Prajna

The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: O Pārtha, when a man gives up all varieties of desire for sense gratification, which arise from mental concoction, and when his mind, thus purified, finds satisfaction in the self alone, then he is said to be in pure transcendental consciousness.

When SP met his Gurudev, he said in the first few minutes of the meeting, he should give up everything and spread the message of KC to the English-speaking world. He thought he is not ready, as he was married and has a child he thought of making money in the business and using that money to spread the Krsna Consciousness. 

The Bhāgavatam affirms that any person who is fully in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, or devotional service of the Lord, has all the good qualities of the great sages, whereas a person who is not so transcendentally situated has no good qualifications, because he is sure to be taking refuge in his own mental concoctions. Consequently, it is rightly said herein that one has to give up all kinds of sense desire manufactured by mental concoction. Artificially, such sense desires cannot be stopped. But if one is engaged in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then, automatically, sense desires subside without extraneous efforts. Therefore, one has to engage himself in Kṛṣṇa consciousness without hesitation, for this devotional service will instantly help one onto the platform of transcendental consciousness. The highly developed soul always remains satisfied in himself by realizing himself as the eternal servitor of the Supreme Lord. Such a transcendentally situated person has no sense desires resulting from petty materialism; rather, he remains always happy in his natural position of eternally serving the Supreme Lord.

SB 8.21.30

As far as the sun and moon shine with the stars and as far as the clouds pour rain, all the land throughout the universe is in your possession.

SB 8.21.31

Of these possessions, with one step I have occupied Bhūrloka, and with My body I have occupied the entire sky and all directions. And in your presence, with My second step, I have occupied the upper planetary system.

SB 8.21.32

Because you have been unable to give charity according to your promise, the rule is that you should go down to live in the hellish planets. Therefore, in accordance with the order of Śukrācārya, your spiritual master, now go down and live there.

It is said:

nārāyaṇa-parāḥ sarve

na kutaścana bibhyati

svargāpavarga-narakeṣv

api tulyārtha-darśinaḥ

“Devotees solely engaged in the devotional service of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Nārāyaṇa, never fear any condition of life. For them the heavenly planets, liberation and the hellish planets are all the same, for such devotees are interested only in the service of the Lord.” (Bhāg. 6.17.28) [ We can serve Krsna even in the hell]

A devotee engaged in the service of Nārāyaṇa is always in equilibrium. A devotee actually lives transcendentally. Although he may appear to have gone to hell or heaven, he does not live in either place; rather, he always lives in Vaikuṇṭha (sa guṇān samatītyaitān brahma-bhūyāya kalpate). 

Vāmanadeva asked Bali Mahārāja to go to the hellish planets, apparently just to show the entire universe how tolerant he was, and Bali Mahārāja did not hesitate to carry out the order. A devotee does not live alone. Of course, everyone lives with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but because the devotee is engaged in His service, he actually does not live in any material condition. Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura says, kīṭa janma hao yathā tuyā dāsa. Thus he prays to take birth as an insignificant insect in the association of devotees. Because devotees are engaged in the service of the Lord, anyone who lives with them also lives in Vaikuṇṭha.

Even in the worst adversity devotee is not affected, he does not give up Devotional service even in the most difficult circumstances. We got arrested many times for doing sankirtan in Paris. We are put in Jail for a day. When we were in Jail we could not do Arti, cook and offer bhoga, we did the whole thing in the jail mentally. In those severe conditions, we can do the service mentally. Vamana deva took away everything from Bali maharaj who thought that he was the owner of everything.

SB 8.21.33

Far from being elevated to the heavenly planets or fulfilling one’s desire, one who does not properly give a beggar what he has promised falls down to a hellish condition of life.

SB 8.21.34

Being falsely proud of your possessions, you promised to give Me land, but you could not fulfill your promise. Therefore, because your promise was false, you must live for a few years in hellish life.

The false prestige of thinking “I am very rich, and I possess such vast property” is another side of material life. Everything belongs to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and no one else possesses anything. This is the real fact. īśāvāsyam idaṁ samaṁ yat kiñca jagatyāṁ jagat. Bali Mahārāja was undoubtedly the most exalted devotee, whereas previously he had maintained a misunderstanding due to false prestige. By the supreme will of the Lord, he now had to go to the hellish planets, but because he went there by the order of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, he lived there more opulently than one could expect to live in the planets of heaven. A devotee always lives with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, engaging in His service, and therefore he is always transcendental to hellish or heavenly residences.

We should never be hesitant in engaging in devotional service. There is no difference between devotional service and Krsna Himself. Krishna has the power to make everything material to spiritual and vice versa. It all depends on our motive.

SB 8.22.11

Only by providence have I been forcibly brought under Your lotus feet and deprived of all my opulence. Because of the illusion created by temporary opulence, people in general, who live under material conditions, facing accidental death at every moment, do not understand that this life is temporary. Only by providence have I been saved from that condition.

Bali Mahārāja appreciated the actions of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, although all the members of the demoniac families except Prahlāda Mahārāja and Bali Mahārāja considered Viṣṇu their eternal traditional enemy. As described by Bali Mahārāja, Lord Viṣṇu was actually not the enemy of the family but the best friend of the family. The principle of this friendship has already been stated. Yasyāham anugṛhṇāmi hariṣye tad-dhanaṁ śanaiḥ: the Lord bestows special favor upon His devotee by taking away all his material opulences. Bali Mahārāja appreciated this behavior by the Lord. Therefore he said, daivena nītaḥ prasabhaṁ tyājita-śrīḥ: “It is to bring me to the right platform of eternal life that You have put me into these circumstances.”

Actually, everyone should fear the so-called society, friendship and love for which he works so hard all day and night. As indicated by Bali Mahārāja by the words janād bhītaḥ, every devotee in Kṛṣṇa consciousness should always be afraid of the common man engaged in pursuing material prosperity. Such a person is described as pramatta, a madman chasing the will-o’-the-wisp. Such men do not know that after a hard struggle for life one must change his body, with no certainty of what kind of body he will receive next. Those who are completely established in Kṛṣṇa conscious philosophy and who therefore understand the aim of life will never take to the activities of the materialistic dog race. But if a sincere devotee somehow does fall down, the Lord corrects him and saves him from gliding down to the darkest region of hellish life.

adānta-gobhir viśatāṁ tamisraṁ

punaḥ punaś carvita-carvaṇānām

(Bhāg. 7.5.30)

The materialistic way of life is nothing but the repeated chewing of that which has already been chewed. Although there is no profit in such a life, people are enamored of it because of uncontrolled senses. Nūnaṁ pramattaḥ kurute vikarma. Because of uncontrolled senses, people fully engage in sinful activities by which they get a body full of suffering. Bali Mahārāja appreciated how the Lord had saved him from such a bewildered life of ignorance. He therefore said that his intelligence had been stunned. Stabdha-matir na budhyate. He could not understand how the Supreme Personality of Godhead favors His devotees by forcibly stopping their materialistic activities.

Amazing statements. SB is so very enlightening, it explains the truth which is completely opposite to what we think as truth. 

BG 2.56 

Success or no success, a Kṛṣṇa conscious person is always steady in his determination.

When you understand that Krsna is testing you, there is no need of fear,.

SB 8.22.31

The Lord continued: Because of his great tolerance, I have given him a place not obtainable even by the demigods. He will become King of the heavenly planets during the period of the Manu known as Sāvarṇi.

Purport

This is the mercy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Even if the Lord takes away a devotee’s material opulences, the Lord immediately offers him a position of which the demigods cannot even dream. There are many examples of this in the history of devotional service. One of them is the opulence of Sudāmā Vipra. Sudāmā Vipra suffered severe material scarcity, but he was not disturbed and did not deviate from devotional service. Thus he was ultimately given an exalted position by the mercy of Lord Kṛṣṇa. Here the word mad-āśrayaḥ is very significant. Because the Lord wanted to give Bali Mahārāja the exalted position of Indra, the demigods might naturally have been envious of him and might have fought to disturb his position. But the Supreme Personality of Godhead assured Bali Mahārāja that he would always remain under the Lord’s protection (mad-āśrayaḥ).

SB 8.22.32

Until Bali Mahārāja achieves the position of King of heaven, he shall live on the planet Sutala, which was made by Viśvakarmā according to My order. Because it is especially protected by Me, it is free from mental and bodily miseries, fatigue, dizziness, defeat and all other disturbances. Bali Mahārāja, you may now go live there peacefully.

SB 8.22.33

O Bali Mahārāja [Indrasena], now you may go to the planet Sutala, which is desired even by the demigods. Live there peacefully, surrounded by your friends and relatives. All good fortune unto you.

Purport

Bali Mahārāja was transferred from the heavenly planet to the planet Sutala, which is hundreds of times better than heaven, as indicated by the words svargibhiḥ prārthyam. When the Supreme Personality of Godhead deprives His devotee of material opulences, this does not mean that the Lord puts him into poverty; rather, the Lord promotes him to a higher position. The Supreme Personality of Godhead did not ask Bali Mahārāja to separate from his family; instead, the Lord allowed him to stay with his family members (jñātibhiḥ parivāritaḥ).

SB 8.22.34

On the planet Sutala, not even the predominating deities of other planets, what to speak of ordinary people, will be able to conquer you. As far as the demons are concerned, if they transgress your rule, My disc will kill them.

SB 8.22.35

O great hero, I shall always be with you and give you protection in all respects along with your associates and paraphernalia. Moreover, you will always be able to see Me there.

SB 8.22.36

Because there you will see My supreme prowess, your materialistic ideas and anxieties that have arisen from your association with the demons and Dānavas will immediately be vanquished.

The Lord assured Bali Mahārāja of all protection, and finally the Lord assured him of protection from the effects of bad association with the demons. Bali Mahārāja certainly became an exalted devotee, but he was somewhat anxious because his association was not purely devotional. The Supreme Personality of Godhead therefore assured him that his demoniac mentality would be annihilated. In other words, by the association of devotees, the demoniac mentality is vanquished.

satāṁ prasaṅgān mama vīrya-saṁvido

bhavanti hṛt-karṇa-rasāyanāḥ kathāḥ

(Bhāg. 3.25.25)

When a demon associates with devotees engaged in glorifying the Supreme Personality of Godhead, he gradually becomes a pure devotee.

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM HH HARIVILAS MAHARAJ’S MORNING BHAGAVATAM CLASS ON SB 2.6.2 – 6:

1. There are many powerful kings, leaders, learned scholars, scientists, artists, engineers, inventors, excavators, archaeologists, industrialists, politicians, economists, business magnates, and many more powerful deities or demigods like Brahmā, Śiva, Indra, Candra, Sūrya, Varuṇa and Marut, who are all protecting the interest of the universal affairs of maintenance, in different positions, and all of them are different powerful parts and parcels of the Supreme Lord. 
2. The Supreme Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa is the father of all living entities, who are placed in different high and low positions according to their desires or aspirations.
3. Some of them, as particularly mentioned above, are specifically endowed with powers by the will of the Lord. 
4. A sane person must know for certain that a living being, however powerful he may be, is neither absolute nor independent. 
5. All living beings must accept the origin of their specific power as mentioned in this verse. And if they act accordingly, then simply by discharging their respective occupational duties they can achieve the highest perfection of life, namely eternal life, complete knowledge and inexhaustible blessings. 
6. As long as the powerful men of the world do not accept the origin of their respective powers, namely the Personality of Godhead, the actions of māyā (illusion) will continue to act. 
7. The actions of māyā are such that a powerful person, misled by the illusory, material energy, wrongly accepts himself as all in all and does not develop God-consciousness.
8. The intelligent class of men, therefore, must admit the Lord as the ultimate source of all energies and thus pay tribute to the Lord for His good blessings. 
9. Simply by accepting the Lord as the supreme proprietor of everything, since He is actually so, one can achieve the highest perfection of life. 
10. Whatever a person may be in the estimation of the social order of things, if a person tries to reciprocate a feeling of love towards the Supreme Personality of Godhead and is satisfied with the blessings of the Lord, he will at once feel the highest peace of mind for which he is hankering life after life. 
11. Peace of mind, or in other words the healthy state of mind, can be achieved only when the mind is situated in the transcendental loving service of the Lord. 
12. The parts and parcels of the Lord are endowed with specific powers for rendering service unto the Lord, just as a big business magnate’s sons are empowered with specific powers of administration. 
13. The obedient son of the father never goes against the will of the father and therefore passes life very peacefully in concurrence with the head of the family, the father. Similarly, the Lord being the father, all living beings should fully and satisfactorily discharge the duty and will of the father, as faithful sons. This very mentality will at once bring peace and prosperity to human society.

SB 2.6.2 TRANSLATION
His two nostrils are the generating centers of our breathing and of all other airs, His smelling powers generate the Aśvinī-kumāra demigods and all kinds of medicinal herbs, and His breathing energies produce different kinds of fragrance.

SB 2.6.3 TRANSLATION
His eyes are the generating centers of all kinds of forms, and they glitter and illuminate. His eyeballs are like the sun and the heavenly planets. His ears hear from all sides and are receptacles for all the Vedas, and His sense of hearing is the generating center of the sky and of all kinds of sound.
The word tīrthānām is sometimes interpreted to mean the places of pilgrimage, but Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī says that it means the reception of the Vedic transcendental knowledge. The propounders of the Vedic knowledge are also known as the tīrthas.

SB 2.6.4 TRANSLATION
His bodily surface is the breeding ground for the active principles of everything and for all kinds of auspicious opportunities. His skin, like the moving air, is the generating center for all kinds of sense of touch and is the place for performing all kinds of sacrifice.

The air is the moving agent of all the planets, and as such, the generating centers for promotion to the deserving planets, the sacrifices, are His bodily surface and are naturally the origin of all auspicious opportunities.

SB 2.6.5 TRANSLATION
The hairs on His body are the cause of all vegetation, particularly of those trees which are required as ingredients for sacrifice. The hairs on His head and face are reservoirs for the clouds, and His nails are the breeding ground of electricity, stones and iron ores.

The polished nails of the Lord generate electricity, and the clouds rest on the hairs of His head. One can therefore collect all sorts of necessities of life from the person of the Lord, and therefore the Vedas affirm that everything that is produced is caused by the Lord. The Lord is the supreme cause of all causes.

SB 2.6.6 TRANSLATION:
The Lord’s arms are the productive fields for the great demigods and other leaders of the living entities who protect the general mass.

CLASS NOTES: 

There are many powerful kings, leaders, learned scholars, scientists, artists, engineers, inventors, excavators, archaeologists, industrialists, politicians, economists, business magnates, and many more powerful deities or demigods like Brahmā, Śiva, Indra, Candra, Sūrya, Varuṇa and Marut, who are all protecting the interest of the universal affairs of maintenance, in different positions, and all of them are different powerful parts and parcels of the Supreme Lord. The Supreme Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa is the father of all living entities, who are placed in different high and low positions according to their desires or aspirations. Some of them, as particularly mentioned above, are specifically endowed with powers by the will of the Lord. A sane person must know for certain that a living being, however powerful he may be, is neither absolute nor independent.All living beings must accept the origin of their specific power as mentioned in this verse. And if they act accordingly, then simply by discharging their respective occupational duties they can achieve the highest perfection of life, namely eternal life, complete knowledge and inexhaustible blessings. As long as the powerful men of the world do not accept the origin of their respective powers, namely the Personality of Godhead, the actions of māyā (illusion) will continue to act. The actions of māyā are such that a powerful person, misled by the illusory, material energy, wrongly accepts himself as all in all and does not develop God consciousness. As such, the false sense of egoism (namely “myself” and “mine”) has become overly prominent in the world, and there is a hard struggle for existence in human society. The intelligent class of men, therefore, must admit the Lord as the ultimate source of all energies and thus pay tribute to the Lord for His good blessings. Simply by accepting the Lord as the supreme proprietor of everything, since He is actually so, one can achieve the highest perfection of life. Whatever a person may be in the estimation of the social order of things, if a person tries to reciprocate a feeling of love towards the Supreme Personality of Godhead and is satisfied with the blessings of the Lord, he will at once feel the highest peace of mind for which he is hankering life after life. Peace of mind, or in other words the healthy state of mind, can be achieved only when the mind is situated in the transcendental loving service of the Lord. The parts and parcels of the Lord are endowed with specific powers for rendering service unto the Lord, just as a big business magnate’s sons are empowered with specific powers of administration. The obedient son of the father never goes against the will of the father and therefore passes life very peacefully in concurrence with the head of the family, the father. Similarly, the Lord being the father, all living beings should fully and satisfactorily discharge the duty and will of the father, as faithful sons. This very mentality will at once bring peace and prosperity to human society.

What we are hearing in this section, chapters 5 and 6 is how the material world is created in very step-by-step detail. You cannot find this in any scripture. How this progressive material creation happens is discussed. It all started with the sound vibration. Qualities of tan mantra – Seeing, hearing, touching… 

Maharaj Parikshit is asking question after question to understand the goal of the human form of life. Only in the human form of life who are civilized are able to understand how the creation took place and who is the ultimate creator, maintainer. We are all subject to the laws of nature – birth-death, old age, and disease. Any strategy or technology cannot save us from birth-death old age and disease.  But the lord said in BG 7.14-  daivy hesa guna mayi.. He is giving us an easy way to overcome the overpowering material nature. Simply by chanting, dancing, feasting… 

Chant, feast, engage in Harinam Sankirtan, preaching, giving people a chance to hear. One is not meant to use the body for sense gratification, not for buying big homes, gadgets. All unnecessary things. The soul does not need mating, gadgets, material allurements.. 

We are forced to do things. 

One thing that is not controlled by laws of nature/ karma is surrender to the lord. They regulate everything else. You can be the worst person but you can still surrender to the lord, your laws of karma does not control. 

We chose not to follow the instructions of Krsna. We are under the spell of modes of material nature. We feel we are independent, but we are not. 

Spiritual life is all about self-sufficiency. What you need is to learn how to grow your own food and depend on God. Industrialization ruined the lives of many people and it made people slaves of unnecessary products. When you are free from all illusory sense gratification activities, you can live peacefully, with a little bit of land, chanting, and hearing. 

People find happiness in accumulating things, gadgets, properties, eating exotic food stuff, vacations, exploiting others, so they are searching for happiness by doing these things… This is impossible. They are searching for things in a place where it cant be found. It is like you lost keys somewhere and you are searching somewhere else and you will never find the keys.

We have the free will to accept that the

1. God is the ultimate beneficiary of all our activities and sacrifices
2. God is the supreme proprietor of everything 
3. Krsna, situated in your heart, is the best friend you can have, always waiting for you to turn your attention towards Him. 

At the end of life, you will go back to Godhead. 

Question – Inexhaustible blessings 

Blessing – eternal life, eternal love, eternal reciprocation with the Lord, eternal 

Blessing cannot be temporary, something which is eternal. 

Not only ending, but it is also dynamic, it is always increasing, You will never get bored in spiritual life. Time is not destroying it is aiding everything. In the spiritual world, there is no past, present, and future. There is the eternal present. The soul is eternally happy. 

Inexhaustible blessings – spiritual world

Inexhaustible miseries – material world. 

The material world always goes through 6 stages – created, grows, exists, produces something, dwindles, & dies

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM HH HARIVILAS MAHARAJ’S MORNING BHAGAVATAM CLASS ON SB 2.5.40 TODAY (07/22/21): 

1. The lower and upper planetary systems are scattered over the complete universe, which occupies an area of two billion times two billion square miles.
2. The modern astronauts can travel only a few thousand miles away from the earth, and therefore their attempt to travel in the sky is something like child’s play on the shore of an expansive ocean.
3. There are innumerable universes beyond the one in which we are put, and all these material universes cover only an insignificant portion of the spiritual sky, which is described as sanātana Brahmaloka.
4. The Supreme Lord very kindly invites the intelligent human beings to return home, back to Godhead in BG 8.16.
5. Beginning from Satyaloka, the topmost planet of the universe, situated just below the eternal Brahmaloka, all the planets are material. And one’s situation in any of the many material planets is still subject to the laws of material nature, namely birth, death, old age and disease. But one can get complete liberation from all the material pangs when one enters into the eternal Brahmaloka sanātana atmosphere, the kingdom of God.
6. Liberation, as contemplated by speculative philosophers and mystics, is possible only when one becomes a devotee of the Lord.
7. Anyone who is not a devotee cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Only by attainment of a service attitude in the transcendental position can one enter into the kingdom of Godhead.
8. In the following verses, Lord Himself is telling us how we can get to His spiritual abode. 
9. BG 11.54 – My dear Arjuna, only by undivided devotional service can I be understood as I am, standing before you, and can thus be seen directly. Only in this way can you enter into the mysteries of My understanding.
10. BG 12.8 – Just fix your mind upon Me, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and engage all your intelligence in Me. Thus you will live in Me always, without a doubt.
11. BG 18.65 – Always think of Me, become My devotee, worship Me and offer your homage unto Me. Thus you will come to Me without fail. I promise you this because you are My very dear friend.
12. BG 18.62 – O scion of Bharata, surrender unto Him utterly. By His grace you will attain transcendental peace and the supreme and eternal abode.
13. A living entity should therefore surrender unto the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is situated in everyone’s heart, and that will relieve him from all kinds of miseries of this material existence. By such surrender, not only will one be released from all miseries in this life, but at the end he will reach the Supreme God. 
14. We understand that only by performing unalloyed devotional service, one can go back to Godhead (Spiritual abode). How this devotional service can be performed is described:  mahājano yena gataḥ sa panthāḥ
15. CC Madhya 17.185 – “A devotee’s behavior establishes the true purpose of religious principles. The behavior of Mādhavendra Purī Gosvāmī is the essence of such religious principles.”
16.  A sādhu, or honest man, is called a mahājana or a mahātmā. The mahātmā is described thus by Lord Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavad-gītā (9.13)
17. It is those who are devoid of devotional service who sometimes mistakenly accept persons with mundane motives as mahājanas. Sometimes fruitive workers, dry philosophers, nondevotees, mystic yogīs, and persons attached to material opulence, women, and money are considered mahājanas.The only motive must be kṛṣṇa-bhakti, devotional service to the Lord. 
18. “Anyone whose work is not meant for elevating him to religious life, anyone whose religious ritualistic performances do not raise him to renunciation, and anyone situated in renunciation that does not lead him to devotional service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead must be considered dead, although he is breathing.”
19. The conclusion is that all pious activity, fruitive activity, religious principles and renunciation must ultimately lead to devotional service
20. There are different types of processes for rendering service. One may serve his country, people and society, the varṇāśrama-dharma system, the sick, the poor, the rich, women, demigods and so on. All this service comes under the heading of sense gratification, or enjoyment in the material world. 
21. It is most unfortunate that people are more or less attracted by such material activity and that the leaders of these activities are accepted as mahājanas, great ideal leaders. Actually they are only misleaders, but an ordinary man cannot understand how he is being misled.
22. Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura says, “One should accept as one’s guide the words of the sādhus, the śāstra and the guru.” A sādhu is a great personality like Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, the śāstras are the injunctions of revealed scriptures, and the guru, or spiritual master, is one who confirms the scriptural injunctions. Accepting the guidance of these three is the actual way of following the great personalities (mahājanas) for real advancement in life (mahājano yena gataḥ sa panthāḥ).
23. A man covered by illusion cannot understand the proper way; therefore Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu says, “The behavior of a devotee is the criterion for all other behavior.” Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu Himself followed the behavior of Mādhavendra Purī and advised others to follow his principles. 
24. Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura warns:“Don’t be carried away by the waves of māyā. Just surrender to the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa, and all miseries will end.” 
25. Those who follow social customs and behavior forget to follow the path chalked out by the mahājanas; thus they are offenders at the feet of the mahājanas.
26. We cannot ascertain the real truth simply by following speculators. We have to follow the footsteps of the mahājanas in the disciplic succession. Then our attempt will be successful.
27. “Whatever is spoken by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu is an incessant flow of nectar.” Whoever accepts His words as reality can understand the essence of the Absolute Truth.
28. Śrī Mādhavendra Purī was a real mahājana because he understood the Absolute Truth properly and throughout his life behaved like a pure devotee. 
29. Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (6.3.20) states that there are twelve mahājanas: Brahmā, Nārada, Śambhu, the four Kumāras, Kapila, Manu, Prahlāda, Janaka, Bhīṣma, Bali, Śukadeva and Yamarāja.
30. To select our mahājanas in the Gauḍīya-sampradāya, we have to follow in the footsteps of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and His representatives. His next representative is Śrī Svarūpa Dāmodara Gosvāmī, and the next representatives are the six Gosvāmīs — Śrī Rūpa, Śrī Sanātana, Bhaṭṭa Raghunātha, Śrī Jīva, Gopāla Bhaṭṭa and Dāsa Raghunātha. A follower of Viṣṇu Svāmī’s was Śrīdhara Svāmī, the most well known commentator on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. He was also a mahājana. Similarly, Caṇḍīdāsa, Vidyāpati and Jayadeva were all mahājanas. The mahajana we follow is Srila Prabhupada.
31. The solid truth of religious principles is hidden in the heart of an unadulterated, self-realized person. Consequently, as the śāstras confirm, one should accept whatever progressive path the mahājanas advocate.’ ”
    
    

SB 2.5.40 

My dear son Nārada, know from me that there are seven lower planetary systems out of the total fourteen. The first planetary system, known as Atala, is situated on the waist; the second, Vitala, is situated on the thighs; the third, Sutala, on the knees; the fourth, Talātala, on the shanks; the fifth, Mahātala, on the ankles; the sixth, Rasātala, on the upper portion of the feet; and the seventh, Pātāla, on the soles of the feet. Thus the virāṭ form of the Lord is full of all planetary systems.

CLASS NOTES: 

All these planetary systems are scattered over the complete universe, which occupies an area of two billion times two billion square miles. The modern astronauts can travel only a few thousand miles away from the earth, and therefore their attempt to travel in the sky is something like child’s play on the shore of an expansive ocean. The moon is situated in the third status of the upper planetary system, and in the Fifth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam we shall be able to know the distant situation of the various planets scattered over the vast material sky. There are innumerable universes beyond the one in which we are put, and all these material universes cover only an insignificant portion of the spiritual sky, which is described above as sanātana Brahmaloka. The Supreme Lord very kindly invites the intelligent human beings to return home, back to Godhead, in the following verse of the 

BHAGAVAD-GĪTĀ (8.16): [ALTERNATE TRANSLATION]

ābrahma-bhuvanāl lokāḥ

punar āvartino ’rjuna

mām upetya tu kaunteya

punar janma na vidyate

Beginning from Satyaloka, the topmost planet of the universe, situated just below the eternal Brahmaloka, as described above, all the planets are material. And one’s situation in any of the many material planets is still subject to the laws of material nature, namely birth, death, old age and disease. But one can get complete liberation from all the above-mentioned material pangs when one enters into the eternal Brahmaloka sanātana atmosphere, the kingdom of God. 

Therefore liberation, as contemplated by the speculative philosophers and the mystics, is possible only when one becomes a devotee of the Lord. Anyone who is not a devotee cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Only by attainment of a service attitude in the transcendental position can one enter into the kingdom of Godhead. Therefore the speculative philosophers, as well as the mystics, must first of all be attracted to the devotional cult before they can factually attain liberation.

BG 8.16 – From the highest planet in the material world down to the lowest, all are places of misery wherein repeated birth and death take place. But one who attains to My abode, O son of Kuntī, never takes birth again.

The real nature of the material world is suffering. Intelligent people come to the conclusion that one has to get out of this material world. No one is happy. Krsna is training people in 2 ways to go back to Godhead. The first way He is teaching BG and the second way he has employed Maya to take charge. 

Everything material world goes through 6 staging – created, grow, stay, by-products, dwindle and die. This is the law, no one can change it. The whole material world is suffering. It is a hopeless situation. Birth death, old age, and disease we have to go through 8.4 million species. If we remain attached to body and relationships then we remain anchored in the cycle of birth and earth. 

All kinds of yogīs – karma, jñāna, haṭha, etc. – eventually have to attain devotional perfection in bhakti-yoga, or Kṛṣṇa consciousness, before they can go to Kṛṣṇa’s transcendental abode and never return. Those who attain the highest material planets, the planets of the demigods, are again subjected to repeated birth and death. 

One has to take to devotional service to get out of this cycle of birth and death. In all these verses the lord is inviting to come to the Sanatana Brahma Loka and is providing devotional service as the solution to the cycle of birth, death, old age, and disease. 

BG 11.54 

My dear Arjuna, only by undivided devotional service can I be understood as I am, standing before you, and can thus be seen directly. Only in this way can you enter into the mysteries of My understanding.

BG 12.8 

Just fix your mind upon Me, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and engage all your intelligence in Me. Thus you will live in Me always, without a doubt.

BG 18.65

Always think of Me, become My devotee, worship Me and offer your homage unto Me. Thus you will come to Me without fail. I promise you this because you are My very dear friend.

BG 18.62

O scion of Bharata, surrender unto Him utterly. By His grace you will attain transcendental peace and the supreme and eternal abode.

A living entity should therefore surrender unto the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is situated in everyone’s heart, and that will relieve him from all kinds of miseries of this material existence. By such surrender, not only will one be released from all miseries in this life, but at the end he will reach the Supreme God. The transcendental world is described in the Vedic literature (Ṛg Veda 1.22.20) as tad viṣṇoḥ paramaṁ padam. Since all of creation is the kingdom of God, everything material is actually spiritual, but paramaṁ padam specifically refers to the eternal abode, which is called the spiritual sky or Vaikuṇṭha.

RG Veda 1.22.20 – Oṁ tad viṣṇoḥ paramaṁ padam (Ṛg Veda 1.22.20). The lotus feet of Viṣṇu are the supreme devotional platform. The performance of everything on behalf of the Supreme Personality of Godhead assures the perfection of all activity.

BG 5.25 

Those who are beyond the dualities that arise from doubts, whose minds are engaged within, who are always busy working for the welfare of all living beings and who are free from all sins achieve liberation in the Supreme.

BG 5.26 

Those who are free from anger and all material desires, who are self-realized, self-disciplined and constantly endeavoring for perfection, are assured of liberation in the Supreme in the very near future.

Having service, whoever is giving you the opportunities to serve is your best friend. 

HOW TO PERFORM DEVOTIONAL SERVICE

CC MADHYA 17.186  (MEANING MAHA JANA YENA GATHA – THIS IS THE ULTIMATE INSTRUCTION HOW TO ENGAGE IN DEVOTIONAL SERVICE WITHOUT MAKING ANY MISTAKES.)

Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu continued, “ ‘Dry arguments are inconclusive. A great personality whose opinion does not differ from others is not considered a great sage. Simply by studying the Vedas, which are variegated, one cannot come to the right path by which religious principles are understood. The solid truth of religious principles is hidden in the heart of an unadulterated, self-realized person. Consequently, as the śāstras confirm, one should accept whatever progressive path the mahājanas advocate.’ ”

CC MADHYA 17.185

“A devotee’s behavior establishes the true purpose of religious principles. The behavior of Mādhavendra Purī Gosvāmī is the essence of such religious principles.”

Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura gives the following commentary on this passage.

DEFINITION OF MAHAJANA/ SADHU/ MAHATMA

A sādhu, or honest man, is called a mahājana or a mahātmā. The mahātmā is described thus by Lord Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavad-gītā (9.13):

mahātmānas tu māṁ pārtha daivīṁ prakṛtim āśritāḥ

bhajanty ananya-manaso jñātvā bhūtādim avyayam

“O son of Pṛthā, those who are not deluded, the great souls, are under the protection of the divine nature. They are fully engaged in devotional service because they know Me as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, original and inexhaustible.”

MATERIAL DEFINITION OF MAHATMA

In the material world, the word mahātmā is understood in different ways by different religionists. Mundaners also come up with their different angles of vision. For the conditioned soul busy in sense gratification, a mahājana is recognized according to the proportion of sense gratification he offers. For instance, a businessman may consider a certain banker to be a mahājana, and karmīs desiring material enjoyment may consider philosophers like Jaimini to be mahājanas. There are many yogīs who want to control the senses, and for them Patañjali Ṛṣi is a mahājana. For the jñānīs, the atheist Kapila, Vasiṣṭha, Durvāsā, Dattātreya and other impersonalist philosophers are mahājanas. For the demons, Hiraṇyākṣa, Hiraṇyakaśipu, Rāvaṇa, Rāvaṇa’s son Meghanāda, Jarāsandha and others are accepted as mahājanas. For materialistic anthropologists speculating on the evolution of the body, a person like Darwin is a mahājana. The scientists who are bewildered by Kṛṣṇa’s external energy have no relationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, yet they are accepted by some as mahājanas. Similarly, philosophers, historians, literary men, public speakers and social and political leaders are sometimes accepted as mahājanas. Such mahājanas are respected by certain men who have been described in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (2.3.19):

“Men who are like dogs, hogs, camels and asses praise those men who never listen to the transcendental pastimes of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the deliverer from evils.”

Our mahajana is Srilaa Prabhupada and we have to follow him.

Thus on the material platform animalistic leaders are worshiped by animals. Sometimes physicians, psychiatrists and social workers try to mitigate bodily pain, distress and fear, but they have no knowledge of spiritual identity and are bereft of a relationship with God. Yet they are considered mahājanas by the illusioned. Self-deceived persons sometimes accept leaders or spiritual masters from a priestly order that has been officially appointed by the codes of material life. In this way, they are deceived by official priests. Sometimes people accept as mahājanas those who have been designated by Śrīla Vṛndāvana dāsa Ṭhākura as ḍhaṅga-vipras (imposter brāhmaṇas). Such imposters imitate the characteristics of Śrīla Haridāsa Ṭhākura, and they envy Haridāsa Ṭhākura, who was certainly a mahājana. They make great artificial endeavors, advertising themselves as great devotees of the Lord or as mystic hypnotists knowledgeable in witchcraft, hypnotism and miracles. Sometimes people accept as mahājanas demons like Pūtanā, Tṛṇāvarta, Vatsa, Baka, Aghāsura, Dhenuka, Kālīya and Pralamba. Some people accept imitators and adversaries of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, such as Pauṇḍraka, Śṛgāla Vāsudeva, the spiritual master of the demons (Śukrācārya), or atheists like Cārvāka, King Vena, Sugata and Arhat. People who accept such imitators as mahājanas have no faith in Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Rather, they accept godless cheaters who present themselves as incarnations of God and cheat foolish people within the material world by word jugglery. Thus many rascals are accepted as mahājanas.

It is those who are devoid of devotional service who sometimes mistakenly accept persons with mundane motives as mahājanas. The only motive must be kṛṣṇa-bhakti, devotional service to the Lord. Sometimes fruitive workers, dry philosophers, nondevotees, mystic yogīs, and persons attached to material opulence, women and money are considered mahājanas. But Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (6.3.25) gives the following statement about such unauthorized mahājanas:

prāyeṇa veda tad idaṁ na mahājano ’yaṁ

 devyā vimohita-matir bata māyayālam

trayyāṁ jaḍī-kṛta-matir madhu-puṣpitāyāṁ

 vaitānike mahati karmaṇi yujyamānaḥ

In this material world a person may be famous as a karma-vīra, a successful fruitive worker, or he may be very successful in performing religious duties, or he may be known as a hero in mental speculation (jñāna-vīra), or he may be a very famous renunciant. In any case, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (3.23.56) gives the following opinion in this matter.

neha yat karma dharmāya na virāgāya kalpate

na tīrtha-pada-sevāyai jīvann api mṛto hi saḥ

“Anyone whose work is not meant for elevating him to religious life, anyone whose religious ritualistic performances do not raise him to renunciation, and anyone situated in renunciation that does not lead him to devotional service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead must be considered dead, although he is breathing.”

The conclusion is that all pious activity, fruitive activity, religious principles and renunciation must ultimately lead to devotional service. There are different types of processes for rendering service. One may serve his country, people and society, the varṇāśrama-dharma system, the sick, the poor, the rich, women, demigods and so on. All this service comes under the heading of sense gratification, or enjoyment in the material world. It is most unfortunate that people are more or less attracted by such material activity and that the leaders of these activities are accepted as mahājanas, great ideal leaders. Actually they are only misleaders, but an ordinary man cannot understand how he is being misled.

Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura says, sādhu-śāstra-guru-vākya, cittete kariyā aikya: “One should accept as one’s guide the words of the sādhus, the śāstra and the guru.” A sādhu is a great personality like Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, the śāstras are the injunctions of revealed scriptures, and the guru, or spiritual master, is one who confirms the scriptural injunctions. Accepting the guidance of these three is the actual way of following the great personalities (mahājanas) for real advancement in life (mahājano yena gataḥ sa panthāḥ). A man covered by illusion cannot understand the proper way; therefore Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu says, dharma-sthāpana-hetu sādhura vyavahāra: “The behavior of a devotee is the criterion for all other behavior.” Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu Himself followed the devotional principles and taught others to follow them. Purī-gosāñira ye ācaraṇa, sei dharma sāra. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu personally followed the behavior of Mādhavendra Purī and advised others to follow his principles. Unfortunately, people have been attracted to the material body since time immemorial.

yasyātma-buddhiḥ kuṇape tri-dhātuke

 sva-dhīḥ kalatrādiṣu bhauma ijya-dhīḥ

yat-tīrtha-buddhiḥ salile na karhicij

 janeṣv abhijñeṣu sa eva go-kharaḥ

“A human being who identifies this body made of three elements with his self, who considers the by-products of the body to be his kinsmen, who considers his land of birth worshipable, and who goes to a place of pilgrimage simply to take a bath rather than meet men of transcendental knowledge there is to be considered like an ass or a cow.” (Bhāg. 10.84.13) Those who accept the logic of gaḍḍālikā-pravāha and follow in the footsteps of pseudo mahājanas are carried away by the waves of māyā. Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura therefore warns:

miche māyāra vaśe, yāccha bhese’,

khāccha hābuḍubu, bhāi

jīva kṛṣṇa-dāsa, e viśvāsa,

ka’rle ta’ āra duḥkha nāi

“Don’t be carried away by the waves of māyā. Just surrender to the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa, and all miseries will end.” Those who follow social customs and behavior forget to follow the path chalked out by the mahājanas; thus they are offenders at the feet of the mahājanas. Sometimes they consider such mahājanas very conservative, or they create their own mahājanas. In this way they ignore the principles of the paramparā system. This is a great misfortune for everyone. If one does not follow in the footsteps of the real mahājanas, one’s plans for happiness will be frustrated. This is elaborately explained later in the Madhya-līlā (chapter twenty-five, verses 55, 56 and 58). It is there stated:

parama kāraṇa īśvare keha nāhi māne

sva-sva-mata sthāpe para-matera khaṇḍane

tāte chaya darśana haite ‘tattva’ nāhi jāni

‘mahājana’ yei kahe, sei ‘satya’ māni

śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya-vāṇī — amṛtera dhāra

tiṅho ye kahaye vastu, sei ‘tattva’ — sāra

People are so unfortunate that they do not accept the instructions of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Instead, they want to be supported by so-called mahājanas, or authorities. Tāte chaya darśana haite ‘tattva’ nāhi jāni: we cannot ascertain the real truth simply by following speculators. We have to follow the footsteps of the mahājanas in the disciplic succession. Then our attempt will be successful. Śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya-vāṇī — amṛtera dhāra: “Whatever is spoken by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu is an incessant flow of nectar.” Whoever accepts His words as reality can understand the essence of the Absolute Truth.

Anything which takes you away from Krsna is demoniac

No one can ascertain the Absolute Truth by following the philosophy of Sāṅkhya or the yoga system of Patañjali, for neither the followers of Sāṅkhya nor the yogīs who follow Patañjali accept Lord Viṣṇu as the Supreme Personality of Godhead (na te viduḥ svārtha-gatiṁ hi viṣṇum). The ambition of such people is never fulfilled; therefore they are attracted by the external energy. Although mental speculators may be renowned all over the world as great authorities, actually they are not. Such leaders are themselves conservative and not at all liberal. However, if we preach this philosophy, people will consider Vaiṣṇavas very sectarian. Śrīla Mādhavendra Purī was a real mahājana, but misguided people cannot distinguish the real from the unreal. But a person who is awakened to Kṛṣṇa consciousness can understand the real religious path chalked out by the Lord and His pure devotees. Śrī Mādhavendra Purī was a real mahājana because he understood the Absolute Truth properly and throughout his life behaved like a pure devotee. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu approved the method of Śrī Mādhavendra Purī. Therefore, although from the material viewpoint the Sanoḍiyā brāhmaṇa was on a lower platform, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu considered him situated on the highest platform of spiritual realization.

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (6.3.20) states that there are twelve mahājanas: Brahmā, Nārada, Śambhu, the four Kumāras, Kapila, Manu, Prahlāda, Janaka, Bhīṣma, Bali, Śukadeva and Yamarāja.

To select our mahājanas in the Gauḍīya-sampradāya, we have to follow in the footsteps of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu and His representatives. His next representative is Śrī Svarūpa Dāmodara Gosvāmī, and the next representatives are the six Gosvāmīs — Śrī Rūpa, Śrī Sanātana, Bhaṭṭa Raghunātha, Śrī Jīva, Gopāla Bhaṭṭa and Dāsa Raghunātha. A follower of Viṣṇu Svāmī’s was Śrīdhara Svāmī, the most well known commentator on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. He was also a mahājana. Similarly, Caṇḍīdāsa, Vidyāpati and Jayadeva were all mahājanas. One who tries to imitate the mahājanas just to become an imitative spiritual master is certainly far away from following in the footsteps of the mahājanas. Sometimes people cannot actually understand how a mahājana follows other mahājanas. In this way people commit offenses and fall from devotional service.

Women are gurus, siksha gurus. But they are not supposed to be initiating gurus. There are other things also – changing the words of the Guru. Original words of Guru should never be changed. Many things can happen but we have to follow the mahajana – Srila Prabhupada, Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur, Bhakti Vinod Thakur, Goswamis,… Caitanya Mahaprabhu