https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ow59bVTv3_LglVTP5Dt3kBknFUUyiGCj/view
KEY TAKEAWAYS from HH Harivilas Maharaj’s Morning Bhagavatam class on SB 1:19:33
- The importance of holy places of pilgrimage is due to the presence of great sages and saints
- Holy places are to be visited not to take bath, it is to actually meet and associate with saintly persons. Even a minute association with a pure devotee will solve many things.
- The holy saints actually have no self-interest with the householders. The only aim of such saints is to sanctify the houses of the householders, and the householders therefore should feel grateful when such saints appear at their doors.
- Living beings are looking for happiness in the wrong platform and are encaged in this material world due to ignorance and thus lament
- The real center of enjoyment is the Supreme Lord. This is the Oneness in the spiritual platform. Everyone has one goal of pleasing Krsna.
- No one but those who surrender at the lotus feet of the Supreme Lord can surpass the stringent laws of nature.
- To get rid of all sorts of illusion and anxiety and create unity out of all diverse interests, we must bring God into all our activities.
- If one hears the pastimes of Lord Kṛṣṇa with the gopīs, from authorities, with submission, then he will be promoted to the platform of transcendental loving service to the Lord, and the material disease of lust within his heart will be completely vanquished.
- The gopīs became one with the Lord by attainment of equal footing with the Lord by rendering loving service to the Lord
- The Lord is satisfied more when His pure devotees are glorified
- Demons are able to attain the same objective as the Yogis who attained with severe penances. The objective is God-consciousness
- Personified Vedas wish to become like Gopis in Vraja
- Personified Vedas ask the lord for benediction to become like cowherd women and the lord sanctions
- Gayatri Mantra also became a gopi
- By remembering the lord one who is impure becomes pure.
- It is the Self which must be observed, heard about, thought of, and meditated upon with fixed concentration
- To that person whom the Supreme Soul chooses, He becomes attainable. To that person the Supreme Soul reveals His personal form
- O Lord, loving remembrance of Your lotus feet is very rarely achieved. Please, O Nṛhari, somehow arrange for me to have that remembrance day and night
SB 1.19.33 Translation:
Simply by our remembering you, our houses become instantly sanctified. And what to speak of seeing you, touching you, washing your holy feet, and offering you a seat in our home?
CLASS NOTES: (SB 1.19.33) The importance of holy places of pilgrimage is due to the presence of great sages and saints
It is said that sinful persons go to the holy places and leave their sins there to accumulate. But the presence of the great saints disinfects the accumulated sins, and thus the holy places continue to remain sanctified by the grace of the devotees and saints present there.
The great benediction of all yugas is that there are saintly persons who wander around the world and give association to the householders. House holders are invariably engaged in sense gratification. Saintly people have no self-interest in visiting the houses of householders. They only visit houses for few mins to enlighten them with what their duty is as a householder. When they visit, they are generally healing the sick, giving spiritual instruction – lifestyle, and recommend dietary changes, giving a regulatory schedule, or giving some indication through astrology.Sinful persons go to holy places and leave their sins. Holy places are to be visited not to take bath, it is to actually meet and associate with saintly persons. Even a minute association with a pure devotee will solve many things.
Saintly persons explain 2 big subjects to the people in general-
1. How the people are entrapped in this world
2. How they can get out of it.
(IOS 7) Living beings are looking for happiness in the wrong platform and are encaged in this material world due to ignorance and thus lamentBy 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 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.
(ISO 7) The real center of enjoyment is the Supreme Lord. This is the Oneness in the spiritual platform. Everyone has one goal of pleasing Krsna.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).
(ISO 7)No one but those who surrender at the lotus feet of the Supreme Lord can surpass the stringent laws of nature. A godless civilization arises from illusion, and the result of such a civilization is lamentation. A godless civilization, such as that sponsored by modern politicians, is always full of anxieties because it may be crushed at any moment. That is the law of nature. As stated in the Bhagavad-gītā (7.14), no one but those who surrender at the lotus feet of the Supreme Lord can surpass the stringent laws of nature. Thus if we wish to get rid of all sorts of illusion and anxiety and create unity out of all diverse interests, we must bring God into all our activities.
1.3.20, 1.18.31, 1.8.42. 1.8.43, 1.8.44(Krsna, Supreme Personality of Godhead) If one hears the pastimes of Lord Kṛṣṇa with the gopīs, from authorities, with submission, then he will be promoted to the platform of transcendental loving service to the Lord, and the material disease of lust within his heart will be completely vanquished.The pleasure potency is called Śrīmatī Rādhārāṇī. The attraction of loving affairs on the basis of sex feeling is the original feature of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and we, the conditioned souls, being part and parcel of the Supreme, have such feelings also, but they are experienced within a perverted, minute condition.
Srila Prabhupada was very upset when someone started the Gopi Bhava club intended to just hear the rasa past times of Radha and Krsna. He said – “If there is one thing you need to meditate on, meditate on Guru Mukha and Yasya Prasada… “
(SB 1.9.40) The gopīs became one with the Lord by attainment of equal footing with the Lord by rendering loving service to the LordBy intense ecstasy in loving service, the damsels of Vrajabhūmi attained the qualitative oneness with the Lord by dancing with Him on an equal level, embracing Him in nuptial love, smiling at Him in-joke and looking at Him with a loving attitude.
The gopīs practically became one with the Lord by attainment of equal footing with the Lord. The gopīs’ equality with the Lord should never be misunderstood to be like the sāyujya liberation of the impersonalist. The equality is one of perfect ecstasy, where the differential conception is completely eradicated, for the interests of the lover and the beloved become identical.”
The Gopis attained oneness with Krsna because their only desire is to please Krsna, they did not have any other desire for sense gratification or did not expect anything from Krsna. They simply always want to give to Krsna. Materialists cannot understand this, because they are only working for their sense of gratification. It is like if Bill Gates says work for Microsoft, I am not giving any salary…
(SB 1.9.40)The Lord is satisfied more when His pure devotees are glorifiedBhīṣma’s aspiration to remember the gopīs is a prayer to have their mercy also at the last stage of his life. The Lord is satisfied more when His pure devotees are glorified, and therefore Bhīṣmadeva has not only glorified the acts of Arjuna, his immediate object of attraction, but also he has remembered the gopīs, who were endowed with unrivalled opportunities by rendering loving service to the Lord.
The yogis by doing severe penances they want to become one with Krsna. Whereas the devotees are able to control Krsna.
(ŚB 10.87.23) Demons are able to attain the same objective as the Yogis who attained with severe penances. The objective is God-consciousness
Followers of the path of mystic yoga subdue their senses and minds by practicing breath control and severe austerities. If they succeed in thoroughly purifying themselves by this regimen, they may eventually begin to realize the Paramātmā, the personal form of Brahman within the heart. And if they continue this meditation without deviation for a long time, they may in the end come to the point of true God-consciousness. But the same objective achieved in this difficult and uncertain way was also attained by the demons who were killed by Lord Kṛṣṇa during His pastimes on the earth. Obsessed with enmity toward Him, demons like Kaṁsa and Śiśupāla quickly obtained the perfection of liberation simply by His killing them.
(SB 10.87.23) Personified Vedas wish to become like Gopis in Vrajathe personified Vedas here state that they would prefer to develop love of Godhead by learning to emulate the favorable surrender of Lord Kṛṣṇa’s confidential devotees, especially the young gopīs of Vraja. Though they appeared to be simple women attracted conjugally to the Lord’s physical beauty and strength, the goddesses of Vraja exhibited the highest perfection of meditation. The śrutis wish to become just like them.
(SB 10.87.23) Personified Vedas ask the lord for benediction to become like cowherd womenOnce, after the Vedas had elaborately praised Him, the Lord felt especially satisfied and spoke to them in a voice whose source remained invisible: ‘My dear sages, I am very satisfied with you. Please ask of Me some benediction that you secretly desire.’”
“The śrutis replied, ‘We have developed the desire to become like the cowherd women of the mortal world who, inspired by lust, worship You in the mood of a lover.’”
“The Lord then said, ‘This desire of Yours is difficult to fulfill. Indeed, it is almost impossible. But since I am sanctioning it, your wish must inevitably come true.’”
“‘When the next Brahmā takes birth to faithfully execute his duties of creation, and when the day of his life called the Sārasvata-Kalpa arrives, you will all appear in Vraja as gopīs.’”
“‘On the earth, in the land of Bhārata, in My own district of Mathurā, in the forest of Vṛndāvana, I will become your beloved in the circle of the rāsa dance.’”
“‘Thus obtaining Me as your paramour, you will all gain the most exalted and steadfast pure love for Me, and in this way, you will fulfill all your ambitions.’”
“Lord Brahmā said: After hearing these words, the śrutis meditated on the Personality of Godhead’s beauty for a long time. When the designated time ultimately arrived, they became gopīs and obtained the association of Kṛṣṇa.”
(SB 10.87.23) Gayatri Mantra also became a gopi A similar account can be found in the Sṛṣṭi-khaṇḍa of the Padma Purāṇa, which describes how the Gāyatrī mantra also became a gopī.
(SB 10.87.23) By Remembering the lord one who is impure becomes pure. Regarding the development of bhakti, Lord Kṛṣṇa further states in the Gopāla-tāpanī Upaniṣad (Uttara 4) “By remembering Me, one who is impure becomes pure. one who follows no vows becomes a strict follower of vows. one who is desireless develops desires [to serve Me]. one who has studied no Vedic mantras becomes an expert knower of the Vedas.”
(SB 10.87.23)It is the Self that must be observed, heard about, thought of, and meditated upon with fixed concentration. The gradual steps in the process of becoming Kṛṣṇa conscious are:
The Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad (4.5.6) refers to the gradual steps in the process of becoming Kṛṣṇa conscious: “It is the Self which must be observed, heard about, thought of, and meditated upon with fixed concentration.” The idea here is that one should realize the Supreme Self as directly visible in His full personality by the following means:
- First, one should hear the instructions of a qualified representative of the Paramātmā and take the words of such a spiritual master into one’s heart by offering him humble service and striving in all ways to please him.
- One should then ponder the divine message of the spiritual master continuously, with the aim of dispelling all one’s doubts and misconceptions.
- Then one can proceed to meditate on the Supreme Lord’s lotus feet with total conviction and determination
(SB 10.87.23) To that person whom the Supreme Soul chooses, He becomes attainable. To that person, the Supreme Soul reveals His personal form
All honest Vaiṣṇavas, however, join in adhering to the devotional service of the Supreme Lord, always meditating with pleasure on His infinitely wonderful, variegated spiritual qualities. In the words of the śruti-mantras, yam evaiṣa vṛṇute tena labhyas/ tasyaiṣa ātmā vivṛṇute tanūṁ svām: “To that person whom the Supreme Soul chooses, He becomes attainable. To that person the Supreme Soul reveals His personal form.” (Kaṭha Upaniṣad 1.2.23 and Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad 3.2.3)
Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī concludes with the prayer,
“O Lord, loving remembrance of Your lotus feet is very rarely achieved. Please, O Nṛhari, somehow arrange for me to have that remembrance day and night.”