KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM HH HARIVILAS MAHARAJ’S MORNING BHAGAVATAM CLASS ON SB 2.6.40 – 41:
- Māyāvāda philosophy tries to designate the Lord as contaminated by a material body when He accepts forms of incarnation.
- This sort of interpolation is completely denied herein by the explanation that the Lord’s position is pure and unalloyed in all circumstances.
- According to Māyāvāda philosophy, the spirit soul, when covered by nescience, is designated as jīva, but when freed from such ignorance or nescience he merges in the impersonal existence of the Absolute Truth.
- Lord is eternally the symbol of full and perfect knowledge. This is His speciality: perpetual freedom from all material contaminations. This distinguishes the Lord from the individual, common living entities who have the aptitude for being subordinated by nescience and thus becoming materially designated.
- Lord is vijñānam ānandam, full of bliss and knowledge. The conditioned souls are never to be compared to Him because such individual souls have the tendency to become contaminated. Although after liberation the living entity can become one with the same quality of existence as the Lord, his very tendency to become contaminated, which the Lord never has, makes the individual living entity different from the Lord.
- In the Vedas it is said, śuddham apāpa-viddham: the individual ātmā becomes polluted by sin, but the Lord is never contaminated by sins.
- This means that the Lord is also all-pervading like the sun, and as such, the word pratyak is used in this verse. Nothing is excluded from the expansions of the Lord’s potency. The Lord is within everything, and He is all-covering also, without being disturbed by the activities of the individual souls. He is therefore infinite, and the living entities are infinitesimal.
- In the Vedas it is said that only the Lord alone exists, and all others’ existences depend on Him.
- He is the generating reservoir for everyone’s existential capacity; He is the Supreme Truth of all other categorical truths.
- He is the source of everyone’s opulence, and therefore no one can equal Him in opulence. Being full of all opulences, namely wealth, fame, strength, beauty, knowledge and renunciation, certainly He is the Supreme Person.
- And because He is a person, He has many personal qualities, although He is transcendental to the material modes.
- His transcendental qualities are so attractive that even the liberated souls (ātmārāmas) are also attracted by them.
- Although possessed of all personal qualities, He is nevertheless omnipotent. Therefore, personally He has nothing to do, for everything is being carried out by His omnipotent energies.
- No one can be compared to the Lord, as the Vedas declare (ekam evādvitīyaṁ brahma, dvaitād vai bhayaṁ bhavati).
- The Lord has no competitor, and He has nothing to fear from any other being, nor can anyone be equal to Him.
- No one can know Him one-hundred-percent as He is (na yaṁ vidanti tattvena).
- But the qualification for understanding to some degree is – Only the praśāntas, or the unalloyed devotees of the Lord, can know Him to a greater extent. The reason is that the devotees have no demands in their lives but to be obedient servants of the Lord.
- All others, namely the empiric philosophers, the mystics and the fruitive workers, all basically have some demand, and they cannot be pacified. By unnecessary dry speculative arguments, the whole matter becomes distorted, and thus the Lord moves still further away from our understanding.
- parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate svābhāvikī jñāna-bala-kriyā ca. This suggests His specific spiritual form, can never be experienced by the material senses. He can be seen only when the senses are purified by devotional service (yam evaiṣa vṛṇute tena labhyaḥ)
- The dry speculators, however, because of their following the principles of austerity and penance, can have knowledge of the impersonal features of the Lord to some extent, but there is no chance of their understanding His ultimate form as Govinda because only the amalātmanas, or the completely sinless persons, can accept pure devotional service to the Lord, as confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā (7.28).
- BG 7.8 – Persons who have acted piously in previous lives and in this life and whose sinful actions are completely eradicated are freed from the dualities of delusion, and they engage themselves in My service with determination.
- The Lord is definitely the supreme person, and His activities are transcendental. One who understands this is a liberated person from the very beginning of his study of Bhagavad-gītā
SB 2.6.40 TRANSLATION:
The Personality of Godhead is pure, being free from all contaminations of material tinges. He is the Absolute Truth and the embodiment of full and perfect knowledge. He is all-pervading, without beginning or end, and without rival. O Nārada, O great sage, the great thinkers can know Him when completely freed from all material hankerings and when sheltered under undisturbed conditions of the senses. Otherwise, by untenable arguments, all is distorted, and the Lord disappears from our sight.
CLASS NOTES:
Untenable – not maintainable.. or defended against attack or objection.
Interpolation – insert something into something which is of different nature
Here is an estimation of the Lord apart from His transcendental activities in the temporary, material creations. Māyāvāda philosophy tries to designate the Lord as contaminated by a material body when He accepts forms of incarnation. This sort of interpolation is completely denied herein by the explanation that the Lord’s position is pure and unalloyed in all circumstances. According to Māyāvāda philosophy, the spirit soul, when covered by nescience, is designated as jīva, but when freed from such ignorance or nescience he merges in the impersonal existence of the Absolute Truth. But here it is said that the Lord is eternally the symbol of full and perfect knowledge. This is His speciality: perpetual freedom from all material contaminations. This distinguishes the Lord from the individual, common living entities who have the aptitude for being subordinated by nescience and thus becoming materially designated.
LORD IS VIJÑĀNAM ĀNANDAM, FULL OF BLISS AND KNOWLEDGE.
In the Vedas it is said that the Lord is vijñānam ānandam, full of bliss and knowledge. The conditioned souls are never to be compared to Him because such individual souls have the tendency to become contaminated. Although after liberation the living entity can become one with the same quality of existence as the Lord, his very tendency to become contaminated, which the Lord never has, makes the individual living entity different from the Lord.
THE LORD IS NEVER CONTAMINATED BY SINS.
In the Vedas it is said, śuddham apāpa-viddham: the individual ātmā becomes polluted by sin, but the Lord is never contaminated by sins. The Lord is compared to the powerful sun. The sun is never contaminated by anything infectious because it is so powerful. On the contrary, infected things are sterilized by the rays of the sun. Similarly, the Lord is never contaminated by sins; on the contrary, the sinful living entities become sterilized by contact with the Lord.
LORD IS ALSO ALL-PERVADING LIKE THE SUN,
This means that the Lord is also all-pervading like the sun, and as such, the word pratyak is used in this verse. Nothing is excluded from the expansions of the Lord’s potency. The Lord is within everything, and He is all-covering also, without being disturbed by the activities of the individual souls. He is therefore infinite, and the living entities are infinitesimal.
ONLY THE LORD ALONE EXISTS, AND ALL OTHERS’ EXISTENCES DEPEND ON HIM.
In the Vedas it is said that only the Lord alone exists, and all others’ existences depend on Him. He is the generating reservoir for everyone’s existential capacity; He is the Supreme Truth of all other categorical truths. He is the source of everyone’s opulence, and therefore no one can equal Him in opulence. Being full of all opulences, namely wealth, fame, strength, beauty, knowledge and renunciation, certainly He is the Supreme Person. And because He is a person, He has many personal qualities, although He is transcendental to the material modes. We have already discussed the statement itthaṁ-bhūta-guṇo hariḥ (Bhāg. 1.7.10).His transcendental qualities are so attractive that even the liberated souls (ātmārāmas) are also attracted by them. Although possessed of all personal qualities, He is nevertheless omnipotent. Therefore, personally He has nothing to do, for everything is being carried out by His omnipotent energies.
Atmarama verse
SB 1.7.10 – Sūta Gosvāmī said: All different varieties of ātmārāmas [those who take pleasure in the ātmā, or spirit self], especially those established on the path of self-realization, though freed from all kinds of material bondage, desire to render unalloyed devotional service unto the Personality of Godhead. This means that the Lord possesses transcendental qualities and therefore can attract everyone, including liberated souls.
Wonderful verse. Lord Caitanya gave many meanings of this verse. Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya….gave 9 explanations of this verse. Lord Caitanya gave 64 explainations of this verse. Lord Saraswathi came in the dreams of Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya and revealed lord Caitanya as the supreme lord.
Primary equalities – measure, essential
Secondary qualities – subjective
This is not true and what is true is Krsna is the Primary quality of everything.
If devotee understands that Krsna is in everything and everything depends on Krsna then His life is perfected. Anyone who is educated in modern philosophy they are fed with false theories.
TWo main points – Lord has perpetually freedom from sin. We have tendency to sin willingly or unwillingly. Lord is all pervading like sun, we are not all pervading. We cannot be equal or greater than Lord. we have some qualities like lord and we are not the Lord.
This is confirmed by the Vedic mantras: parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate svābhāvikī jñāna-bala-kriyā ca. This suggests His specific spiritual form, which can never be experienced by the material senses.
BG 3.22
O son of Pṛthā, there is no work prescribed for Me within all the three planetary systems. Nor am I in want of anything, nor have I a need to obtain anything – and yet I am engaged in prescribed duties.
The Supreme Personality of Godhead is described in the Vedic literatures as follows:
tam īśvarāṇāṁ paramaṁ maheśvaraṁ
taṁ devatānāṁ paramaṁ ca daivatam
patiṁ patīnāṁ paramaṁ parastād
vidāma devaṁ bhuvaneśam īḍyam
na tasya kāryaṁ karaṇaṁ ca vidyate
na tat-samaś cābhyadhikaś ca dṛśyate
parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate
svābhāvikī jñāna-bala-kriyā ca
He can be seen only when the senses are purified by devotional service (yam evaiṣa vṛṇute tena labhyaḥ). As such, there are basic differences between the Lord and the living entities, in so many respects.
- No one can be compared to the Lord, as the Vedas declare (ekam evādvitīyaṁ brahma, dvaitād vai bhayaṁ bhavati).
- The Lord has no competitor, and He has nothing to fear from any other being, nor can anyone be equal to Him.
Although He is the root of all other beings, there are basic differences between Him and other beings. Otherwise there would have been no necessity for the statement in the previous verse that no one can know Him one-hundred-percent as He is (na yaṁ vidanti tattvena).
QUALIFICATION FOR UNDERSTANDING TO SOME DEGREE
That no one can fully understand Him is explained also in this verse, but the qualification for understanding to some degree is mentioned here. Only the praśāntas, or the unalloyed devotees of the Lord, can know Him to a greater extent. The reason is that the devotees have no demands in their lives but to be obedient servants of the Lord, while all others, namely the empiric philosophers, the mystics and the fruitive workers, all basically have some demand, and as such, they cannot be pacified. The fruitive worker wants reward for his work, the mystic wants some perfection of life, and the empiric philosopher wants to merge in the existence of the Lord. Somehow or other, as long as there is a demand for sense satisfaction, there is no chance for pacification; on the contrary, by unnecessary dry speculative arguments, the whole matter becomes distorted, and thus the Lord moves still further away from our understanding. The dry speculators, however, because of their following the principles of austerity and penance, can have knowledge of the impersonal features of the Lord to some extent, but there is no chance of their understanding His ultimate form as Govinda because only the amalātmanas, or the completely sinless persons, can accept pure devotional service to the Lord, as confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā (7.28):
yeṣāṁ tv anta-gataṁ pāpaṁ
janānāṁ puṇya-karmaṇām
te dvandva-moha-nirmuktā
bhajante māṁ dṛḍha-vratāḥ
BG 7.8
Persons who have acted piously in previous lives and in this life and whose sinful actions are completely eradicated are freed from the dualities of delusion, and they engage themselves in My service with determination.
Symbol of pure devotee is they are always satisfied and not attracted by the grass is greener on the other side.
BG 4.42
Therefore the doubts which have arisen in your heart out of ignorance should be slashed by the weapon of knowledge. Armed with yoga, O Bhārata, stand and fight.
One who does not understand the instructions of the Gītā is faithless, and is to be considered to be misusing the fragmental independence awarded to him by the Lord. In spite of such instructions, one who does not understand the real nature of the Lord as the eternal, blissful, all-knowing Personality of Godhead is certainly fool number one. Ignorance can be removed by gradual acceptance of the principles of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Kṛṣṇa consciousness is awakened by different types of sacrifices to the demigods, sacrifice to Brahman, sacrifice in celibacy, in household life, in controlling the senses, in practicing mystic yoga, in penance, in forgoing material possessions, in studying the Vedas and in partaking of the social institution called varṇāśrama-dharma. All of these are known as sacrifice, and all of them are based on regulated action. But within all these activities, the important factor is self-realization. One who seeks that objective is the real student of Bhagavad-gītā, but one who doubts the authority of Kṛṣṇa falls back.
One is therefore advised to study Bhagavad-gītā, or any other scripture, under a bona fide spiritual master, with service and surrender.
A bona fide spiritual master is in the disciplic succession from time eternal, and he does not deviate at all from the instructions of the Supreme Lord as they were imparted millions of years ago to the sun-god, from whom the instructions of Bhagavad-gītā have come down to the earthly kingdom. One should, therefore, follow the path of Bhagavad-gītā as it is expressed in the Gītā itself and beware of self-interested people after personal aggrandizement who deviate others from the actual path.
The Lord is definitely the supreme person, and His activities are transcendental. One who understands this is a liberated person from the very beginning of his study of Bhagavad-gītā.
Dont be around people who are profit oriented…We are not business men, devotee is not interested in making profit, a devotee is interested in making devotees. As long as profit incentive is there everything becomes contaminated.
The scientists, philosophers they obfuscate the supreme truth, that Krsna is the absolute. They have a disease that hinders them from mention the name of the God. They mention name of God only to demean Him or insult Him or make fun of Him. One should be around people like that, very dangerous.