Srila Prabhupada on Srimad Bhagavatam, Part 19

BY: SUN STAFF


Mar 23, 2011 — CANADA (SUN) — A serial exploration of Srila Prabhupada's preaching on Srimad Bhagavatam.

Today we continue our study of Srila Prabhupada's lectures on Srimad Bhagavatam 1.1.2. In previous segments we covered four consecutive lectures he gave on this sloka while in London, on August 15th through 18th, 1971. Today we cover the fifth and last lecture on SB 1.1.2, given in Caracas, Venezuela on February 23, 1975.

In the Caracas lecture, Srila Prabhupada begins by reading the sloka, then mentions the following (paraphrased) points, among others:

Dharma means the codes or the law given by God. One may have faith, or not have faith. It doesn't matter. The codes or law given by God, that is a fact.

Dharma does not mean a faith. It is compulsory. The compulsory law is that God is great, and we are subordinate or servant of God. You may believe or not believe; the God's law will apply upon you forcibly.

You may believe or not believe; you have to die. Similarly, one may believe or not believe; he has to take birth.

Death means to give up this body and accept another body. tatha dehantara-praptir dhiras tatra na muhyati (Bg 2.13). A child must accept the body of a boy. The boy, he must accept next the body of a youth, and the youth must accept the old man's body. This is the law of God. You must accept it.

Nature cannot work automatically without the incentive or manipulation of God behind nature. Foolish people think that nature is working automatically. mayadhyaksena prakrtih (Bg 9.10).

You cannot manufacture any laws of religion. Religion means the order or the laws given by God. dharmah projjhita-kaitavah atra, cheating type of religious system.

Real religion means "God is there. I am there. God is great. I am subordinate. I must abide by the laws of God." This is religion.

sarva-dharman parityajya mam ekam saranam vraja (Bg 18.66). "You have manufactured so many religious system. So you give up all these. You simply surrender unto Me."

"First-class religion," yato bhaktir adhoksaje" (SB 1.2.6) which teaches us how to surrender to God and love Him." Ahaituky apratihata yayatma suprasidati (SB 1.2.6). Ahaituki means without any motive. Apratihata, without any checking.

There are four principles in human society: dharma, artha, kama, and moksa. First of all become religious, and then you solve your economic problem, and then satisfy your senses, and then become one with God.

Religion does not mean to solve the economic problem.

They think that "If I have to ask bread from God, so why shall I go to God? Let me earn money very nicely, and I can purchase bread. Why shall I go to church?" On account of this motivated religion, the communists are taking advantage, and they are preaching Godlessness.

"We, in the church we asked for bread. There was no supply of bread. And as soon as I prayed bread from the communist leader, there are so many breads." But the innocent people, they do not know that this communist leader has supplied bread not from his father's stock; it is from the stock of God. Food grains, the wheat or the pulses, that is not made by communist leader.

If we approach God for some material benefit, we may be cheated. dharmah projjhita atra kaitavah (SB 1.1.2): "This kind of motivated religious system is completely thrown away from this Srimad-Bhagavatam."

There are 8,400,000 forms of living entity. Only 400,000 forms are human body. So eight million... they are getting all their foodstuff supplied by God.

God supplies immense bread or eatable things without any asking. In African jungle there are hundreds, thousands of elephants. They eat a huge quantity of food. But still, they are supplied by God.

We can produce foodstuff for supplying food, ten times of the whole world population. So there is no need of approaching God with a motive for material supplies or satisfaction.

nityo nityanam cetanas cetananam, eko yo bahunam vidadhati kaman (Katha Upanisad 2.2.13). The description of God is given: "He is also living entity like us. He is also eternal like us." What is the difference between Him and us? eko yo bahunam vidadhati kaman (Katha Upanisad 2.2.13): "That one God is supplying all the necessities of these many."

tasyaiva hetoh prayateta kovido (SB 1.5.18), "One should try for developing God consciousness, not for anything else, because happiness and distress, they come automatically."

"As distress comes without any desire, similarly, happiness also will come without any endeavor."

In the human life, the endeavor should be how to find out or revive our relationship with God.

"If God can supply eight million types of different lower animals, then why shall not God give the necessities of life to the human society?"

"This type of religion means to love God", sivadam tapa-traya unmulanam (SB 1.1.2), and the three-fold miserable condition of life is completely uprooted.

On account of this material body, we have got three-fold miseries, so many things over which we have no control. If you take up this religious system--means how to love God--then you will be transcendental to all the miserable conditions of material existence.

We have got four defects, namely we commit mistake, we are sometimes illusioned, and sometimes we do not know properly anything… we should know that our present material senses are imperfect.

We acquire knowledge by using our different senses. Therefore, because they are imperfect, whatever knowledge we gather by speculation, that is imperfect. If we take knowledge from personalities who are liberated, that knowledge is perfect. This is the process of acquiring knowledge in the Krsna consciousness movement.

We have now become Godless, we have no information of God, but if you read Srimad-Bhagavatam, then immediately you will realize God.

Try to understand what is God, what is your relationship with God, and act accordingly. You will be immediately peaceful. As soon as you become peaceful, your life is successful.

(Question about mutation and variation, and how one species evolves from another species:) By the mind, intelligence and ego. At the time of death, you think of what you have done all through your life. So the mental situation at the time of death will carry you to the different form of life as your mental situation.

After the destruction of this gross body, the subtle body carries me to another gross body. We have got practical experience. Just like from a rose garden, the flavor is carried by the air, transferred to another place. In this life, whatever our mental creation, that will be carried in the next life, and according to that, nature will give us a body.

If we think of dog, maybe we are transferred to the dog's body. If I think of God, then I shall be transferred to a god's body. So we have scattered our love for so many things in the material world. We have to collect everything and transfer everything for loving God.

This Krsna consciousness movement is for educating people how to think of God constantly. And if we practice like that, then, after giving up this body, we are going to get a body which is exactly like God. This body is called sac-cid-ananda.


In our next segment, we'll provide an ordering of the essential points from all five of Srila Prabhupada's lectures, as they relate to each statement in the translated sloka, and we'll consider the sastric citations offered throughout the lectures on SB 1.1.2.


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