SB 2.10.4 Notes – 2/9/22

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM HH HARIVILAS MAHARAJ’S MORNING BHAGAVATAM CLASS ON SB 2.10.4:

  • In the Bhagavad-gītā it is said that beginning from the topmost planet of this universe down to the lowest planet, Pātālaloka, all are destructible, and the conditioned souls may travel in space either by good or bad work or by modern spacecraft, but they are sure to die everywhere, although the duration of life in different planets is different.
  • The only means to attain eternal life is to go back home, back to Godhead, where there is no more rebirth as in the material planets. 
  • The conditioned souls, being unaware of this very simple fact because of forgetting their relationship with the Lord of Vaikuṇṭha, try to plan out a permanent life in this material world. Being illusioned by the external energy, they thus become engaged in various types of economic and religious development, forgetting that they are meant for going back home, back to Godhead.
  • This forgetfulness is so strong due to the influence of māyā that the conditioned souls do not at all want to go back to Godhead. By sense enjoyment they become victims of birth and death repeatedly and thus spoil human lives which are chances for going back to Viṣṇu. 
  • The directive scriptures made by the Manus in different ages and millenniums are called sad-dharma, good guidance for the human beings, who should take advantage of all the revealed scriptures for their own interest, to make life’s successful termination. 
  • The creation is not false, but it is a temporary manifestation just to give a chance for the conditioned souls to go back to Godhead. 
  • The desire to go back to Godhead and functions performed in that direction form the right path of work. When such a regulative path is accepted, the Lord gives all protection to His devotees by His causeless mercy, while the nondevotees risk their own activities to bind themselves in a chain of fruitive reactions.
  • The word sad-dharma is significant in this connection. Sad-dharma, or duty performed for going back to Godhead and thus becoming His unalloyed devotee, is the only pious activity; all others may pretend to be pious, but actually they are not.
  • To work situated in sad-dharma is the right direction of life. One’s aim of life should be to go back home, back to Godhead, and not be subjected to repeated births and deaths in the material world by getting good or bad bodies for temporary existence. Herein lies the intelligence of human life, and one should desire the activities of life in that way.
  • The completeness of human life can be realized only when one engages in the service of the Complete Whole. All services in this world – whether social, political, communal, international or even interplanetary – will remain incomplete until they are dovetailed with the Complete Whole. When everything is dovetailed with the Complete Whole, the attached parts and parcels also become complete in themselves.

SB 2.10.4 TRANSLATION:

The right situation for the living entities is to obey the laws of the Lord and thus be in perfect peace of mind under the protection of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The Manus and their laws are meant to give right direction in life. The impetus for activity is the desire for fruitive work.

This material world is created, maintained for some time, and again annihilated by the will of the Lord. The ingredients for creation and the subordinate creator, Brahmā, are first created by Lord Viṣṇu in His first and second incarnations. The first puruṣa incarnation is Mahā-Viṣṇu, and the second puruṣa incarnation is the Garbhodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, from whom Brahmā is created. The third puruṣa-avatāra is the Kṣīrodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, who lives as the Supersoul of everything in the universe and maintains the creation generated by Brahmā. Śiva is one of the many sons of Brahmā, and he annihilates the creation. Therefore the original creator of the universe is Viṣṇu, and He is also the maintainer of the created beings by His causeless mercy. As such, it is the duty of all conditioned souls to acknowledge the victory of the Lord and thus become pure devotees and live peacefully in this world, where miseries and dangers are always in existence. The conditioned souls, who take this material creation as the place for satisfaction of the senses and thus are illusioned by the external energy of Viṣṇu, remain again to be subjected to the laws of material nature, creation and destruction.

In the Bhagavad-gītā it is said that beginning from the topmost planet of this universe down to the lowest planet, Pātālaloka, all are destructible, and the conditioned souls may travel in space either by good or bad work or by modern spacecraft, but they are sure to die everywhere, although the duration of life in different planets is different. The only means to attain eternal life is to go back home, back to Godhead, where there is no more rebirth as in the material planets. The conditioned souls, being unaware of this very simple fact because of forgetting their relationship with the Lord of Vaikuṇṭha, try to plan out a permanent life in this material world. Being illusioned by the external energy, they thus become engaged in various types of economic and religious development, forgetting that they are meant for going back home, back to Godhead.

Even religious development is also some kind of illusion

 This forgetfulness is so strong due to the influence of māyā that the conditioned souls do not at all want to go back to Godhead. By sense enjoyment they become victims of birth and death repeatedly and thus spoil human lives which are chances for going back to Viṣṇu. The directive scriptures made by the Manus in different ages and millenniums are called sad-dharma, good guidance for the human beings, who should take advantage of all the revealed scriptures for their own interest, to make life’s successful termination. The creation is not false, but it is a temporary manifestation just to give a chance for the conditioned souls to go back to Godhead. The desire to go back to Godhead and functions performed in that direction form the right path of work. When such a regulative path is accepted, the Lord gives all protection to His devotees by His causeless mercy, while the nondevotees risk their own activities to bind themselves in a chain of fruitive reactions. The word sad-dharma is significant in this connection. Sad-dharma, or duty performed for going back to Godhead and thus becoming His unalloyed devotee, is the only pious activity; all others may pretend to be pious, but actually they are not. It is for this reason only that the Lord advises in the Bhagavad-gītā that one give up all so-called religious activities and completely engage in the devotional service of the Lord to become free from all anxieties due to the dangerous life of material existence. To work situated in sad-dharma is the right direction of life. One’s aim of life should be to go back home, back to Godhead, and not be subjected to repeated births and deaths in the material world by getting good or bad bodies for temporary existence. Herein lies the intelligence of human life, and one should desire the activities of life in that way.

Simple outline of what is the purpose of life.. 

There are millions of planets.. We have particular type of body, mind, intelligence, what is the purpose of life.. 

By reading BG with a devotee.. Maharaj understood the purpose of life.. 

State of maya and engaged in all kinds of fruitive activities

Fruitive is not in dictionary.. SP made this word

Activities of which you want to enjoy the fruit of the activity 

Work meant to please ourselves, family, extended family, humanity… 

Work meant to please Krsna

They teach that the purpose of life is sense gratification in a subtle way.. 

No one can get away with anything.. 

The culture does not teach that, they might teach some mundane morality.. 

Bad guys are glorified in the books and movies.. 

ISO says – The root of all evil is the deliberate disobedience of the laws of nature… 

If you live according to Krsna instructions.. There are so many benefits,.,. 

Srinvatam svakatah…

Daily hear BG and SB – The lord in our heart takes special interest in us and becomes the best wishing friend and helps us in every way to purify through hearing chanting.. Who can be our best friend than Krsna.. One who hears and follows His advice  takes special interest,.. And becomes best friend, reveals according to our surrender and becomes our personal protector.. This one verse is enough to take us back to Godhead.. 

ISO INVOCATION: 

The Personality of Godhead is perfect and complete, and because He is completely perfect, all emanations from Him, such as this phenomenal world, are perfectly equipped as complete wholes. Whatever is produced of the Complete Whole is also complete in itself. Because He is the Complete Whole, even though so many complete units emanate from Him, He remains the complete balance.

The Complete Whole, or the Supreme Absolute Truth, is the complete Personality of Godhead. Realization of impersonal Brahman or of Paramātmā, the Supersoul, is incomplete realization of the Absolute Complete. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha. Realization of impersonal Brahman is realization of His sat feature, or His aspect of eternity, and Paramātmā realization is realization of His sat and cit features, His aspects of eternity and knowledge. But realization of the Personality of Godhead is realization of all the transcendental features – sat, cit and ānanda, bliss. When one realizes the Supreme Person, he realizes these aspects of the Absolute Truth in their completeness. Vigraha means “form.” Thus 

  • CONTAINS BOTH WITHIN AND BEYOND: the Complete Whole is not formless. If He were formless, or if He were less than His creation in any other way, He could not be complete. The Complete Whole must contain everything both within and beyond our experience; otherwise He cannot be complete.
  • EVERYTHING FROM LORD IS COMPLETE IN ITSELF: The Complete Whole, the Personality of Godhead, has immense potencies, all of which are as complete as He is. Thus this phenomenal world is also complete in itself. 
  • NO EFFORTS OF MAINTENANCE & EVERYTHING IS GIVEN TO REALIZE THE COMPLETE WHOLE: The twenty-four elements of which this material universe is a temporary manifestation are arranged to produce everything necessary for the maintenance and subsistence of this universe. No other unit in the universe need make an extraneous effort to try to maintain the universe. The universe functions on its own time scale, which is fixed by the energy of the Complete Whole, and when that schedule is completed, this temporary manifestation will be annihilated by the complete arrangement of the Complete Whole.All facilities are given to the small complete units (namely the living beings) to enable them to realize the Complete Whole. 
  • INCOMPLETE KNOWLEDGE: All forms of incompleteness are experienced due to incomplete knowledge of the Complete Whole. 
  • The human form of life is a complete manifestation of the consciousness of the living being, and it is obtained after evolving through 8,400,000 species of life in the cycle of birth and death.

The whole system convinced that you are a temp body.. The whole purpose is to enjoy as much as you can when you are in this body.. You can do anything in life as long as you can get away with it.. 

  • If in this human life of full consciousness the living entity does not realize his completeness in relation to the Complete Whole, he loses the chance to realize his completeness and is again put into the evolutionary cycle by the law of material nature.
  • Because we do not know that there is a complete arrangement in nature for our maintenance, we make efforts to utilize the resources of nature to create a so-called complete life of sense enjoyment. 
  • Because the living entity cannot enjoy the life of the senses without being dovetailed with the Complete Whole, the misleading life of sense enjoyment is illusion. The hand of a body is a complete unit only as long as it is attached to the complete body. When the hand is severed from the body, it may appear like a hand, but it actually has none of the potencies of a hand.
  • Similarly, living beings are part and parcel of the Complete Whole, and if they are severed from the Complete Whole, the illusory representation of completeness cannot fully satisfy them. (That is why people Suffering, frustarted, bored.. Can’t get out enough of sense gratification.)
  • The completeness of human life can be realized only when one engages in the service of the Complete Whole. All services in this world – whether social, political, communal, international or even interplanetary – will remain incomplete until they are dovetailed with the Complete Whole. When everything is dovetailed with the Complete Whole, the attached parts and parcels also become complete in themselves.

These 8 points in this purport are enough to go back to Godhead if you understand them. 

Hearing and Serving … I do not need anything else.. I am perfect and complete.. Misled by this system..