KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM HH HARIVILAS MAHARAJ’S MORNING BHAGAVATAM CLASS ON SB 2.1.39
- The great gosvāmī Śrīla Śukadeva tries to impress upon us that instead of diverting our attention to several branches of self-realization, we should concentrate upon the Supreme Personality of Godhead as the supreme object of realization, worship and devotion.
- Self-realization is offering a fight for eternal life against the material struggle for existence, and therefore by the illusory grace of the external energy, the yogī or the devotee is faced with many allurements which can entangle a great fighter again in the bondage of material existence.
- One is warned against such allurements (yogic powers, wealth, women) because entanglement again in such illusory pleasure means degradation of the self and further imprisonment in the material world.
- Lord is the Supersoul of everything. When a man sees anything, he must know that his seeing is secondary and the Lord’s seeing is primary. One cannot see anything without the Lord’s having first seen it. That is the instruction of the Vedas and the Upaniṣads.
- The virāṭ-rūpa, or the gigantic feature of the Supreme Lord, includes everything materially manifested, and therefore virat rupa of the Lord is the Supersoul of all living and nonliving entities.
- But the virāṭ-rūpa is also the manifestation of Nārāyaṇa or Viṣṇu, and going further on and on one will eventually see that Lord Kṛṣṇa is the ultimate Supersoul of everything that be.
- The conclusion is that one should unhesitatingly become a worshiper of Lord Kṛṣṇa, or, for that matter, His plenary expansion Nārāyaṇa, and none else.
- Being an emanation from the glancing potency of Nārāyaṇa, the whole material creation is non-different from Him. But because it is the effect of His external energy (bahiraṅgā māyā) and is aloof from the internal potency (ātma-māyā), the whole material creation is different from Him at the same time.
- The whole material creation, therefore, is one with and different from Nārāyaṇa, simultaneously, and this supports the acintya-bhedābheda-tattva philosophy of Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.
- This material creation is exactly a dreamlike creation of the Lord, but He, being the transcendental Supersoul, is neither entangled nor affected by the reactions of such a dreamlike creation. He is always in His transcendental position, but essentially, He is everything, and nothing is apart from Him.
- As a part of Him, one should therefore concentrate on Him only, without deviation; otherwise, one is sure to be overcome by the potencies of the material creation, one after another.
- BG 9.7 – “O son of Kuntī, at the end of the millennium every material manifestation enters into My nature, and at the beginning of another millennium, by My potency, I again create.”
- The human life, however, is an opportunity to get out of this repetition of creation and annihilation. It is a means whereby one may escape the Lord’s external potency and enter into His internal potency
SB 2.1.39 TRANSLATION:
One should concentrate his mind upon the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who alone distributes Himself in so many manifestations just as ordinary persons create thousands of manifestations in dreams. One must concentrate the mind on Him, the only all-blissful Absolute Truth. Otherwise, one will be misled and will cause his own degradation.
CLASS NOTES:
Sukhdev Goswami tries to impress upon us that instead of diverting our attention to several branches of self-realization, we should concentrate upon the Supreme Personality of Godhead as the supreme object of realization, worship and devotion.
SELF REALIZATION IS A FIGHT FOR ETERNAL LIFE AGAINST THE MATERIAL STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE
Self-realization is, as it were, offering a fight for eternal life against the material struggle for existence, and therefore by the illusory grace of the external energy, the yogī or the devotee is faced with many allurements which can entangle a great fighter again in the bondage of material existence. A yogī can attain miraculous successes in material achievements, such as aṇimā and laghimā, by which one can become more minute than the minutest or lighter than the lightest, or in the ordinary sense, one may achieve material benedictions in the shape of wealth and women. But one is warned against such allurements because entanglement again in such illusory pleasure means degradation of the self and further imprisonment in the material world. By this warning, one should follow one’s vigilant intelligence only.
Self realization offers a fight – almost everyone is bewildered by the struggle for existence that they do not have the time for the self realization. Without the self realization, we will lose the battle. Yogi can do miraculous things but they are all material benedictions and binding. All of us are re·cid·i·vist (a convicted criminal who reoffends, especially repeatedly). We are repeatedly making the same mistake of getting entangled in this material world.
LORD IS THE SUPERSOUL OF EVERYTHING.
The Supreme Lord is one, and His expansions are various. He is therefore the Supersoul of everything. When a man sees anything, he must know that his seeing is secondary and the Lord’s seeing is primary. One cannot see anything without the Lord’s having first seen it. That is the instruction of the Vedas and the Upaniṣads. So whatever we see or do, the Supersoul of all acts of seeing or doing is the Lord.
This is a huge statement. Primary quality of everything is super soul. Secondary quality is all the measurable things. If you read philosophers, they say primary quality is something you can measure. If you do not see that primary quality is krishna then you are in illusion.
THE VIRĀṬ-RŪPA, OR THE GIGANTIC FEATURE OF THE SUPREME LORD S THE SUPERSOUL OF ALL LIVING AND NONLIVING ENTITIES.
This theory of simultaneous oneness and difference between the individual soul and the Supersoul is propounded by Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu as the philosophy of acintya-bhedābheda-tattva. The virāṭ-rūpa, or the gigantic feature of the Supreme Lord, includes everything materially manifested, and therefore the virāṭ or gigantic feature of the Lord is the Supersoul of all living and nonliving entities. But the virāṭ-rūpa is also the manifestation of Nārāyaṇa or Viṣṇu, and going further on and on one will eventually see that Lord Kṛṣṇa is the ultimate Supersoul of everything that be. The conclusion is that one should unhesitatingly become a worshiper of Lord Kṛṣṇa, or, for that matter, His plenary expansion Nārāyaṇa, and none else.
People who stop at the virat rupa, the mayavadis go till brahman effulgence, yogis go till paramatma, few stop at Narayana is the source of Krsna.
Sri Vaishnavas who say Krsna is source of Narayana – Kulasekara, Goda devi, Alwars,
If we cannot see something that does not mean that things do not exist. Animals can see and hear much better than human beings. Our senses are imperfect.
The whole material creation, therefore, is one with and different from Nārāyaṇa, simultaneously, and this supports the acintya-bhedābheda-tattva philosophy of Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu.
THIS MATERIAL CREATION IS EXACTLY A DREAMLIKE CREATION OF THE LORD,
but He, being the transcendental Supersoul, is neither entangled nor affected by the reactions of such a dreamlike creation. He is always in His transcendental position, but essentially He is everything, and nothing is apart from Him. As a part of Him, one should therefore concentrate on Him only, without deviation; otherwise one is sure to be overcome by the potencies of the material creation, one after another.
REPITITION OF CREATION AND ANNIHILATION
Bhagavad-gītā (9.7) as follows:
sarva-bhūtāni kaunteya
prakṛtiṁ yānti māmikām
kalpa-kṣaye punas tāni
kalpādau visṛjāmy aham
“O son of Kuntī, at the end of the millennium every material manifestation enters into My nature, and at the beginning of another millennium, by My potency, I again create.”
THE HUMAN LIFE, HOWEVER, IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO GET OUT OF THIS REPETITION OF CREATION AND ANNIHILATION. It is a means whereby one may escape the Lord’s external potency and enter into His internal potency.
Start a project starting today, where we do some research and write down how Krsna is different from a living entity, but yet there is a grain of similarity also. Also, every living entity is a microcosm of Krsna. Write down How Krsna is One and different.
The ability to understand if a person is genuine or nonsense is absolutely important.
Difference between being clever and being intelligent. Clever guy knows how to obfuscate. (obscure, unclear, bewilder someone). This is what all charletons do. They are selling snake oil. It heals everything.
SB 2.1.38
This process of concentrating on the different bodily parts of the Lord will gradually diminish the demoniac challenge of godlessness and bring about gradual development of devotional service to the Lord. Everything being a part and parcel of the complete whole, the neophyte student will gradually realize the hymns of Īśopaniṣad which state that the Supreme Lord is everywhere, and thus he will learn the art of not committing any offense to the body of the Lord. This sense of God-mindedness will diminish one’s pride in challenging the existence of God. Thus one can learn to show respect to everything, for all things are parts and parcels of the supreme body.
If you talk about the toddler who sucks the breast and that woman is killed and body becomes 12 miles long. People will not understand. If you talk about the Bones, teeth, veins, limbs, hands of virat rupa, people can understand… Talking about confidential past times of Rasalila , people will diminish Krsna. Lord caitanya never preached in public. He only preached to his close associates. In the public he did sankirtan and distributed prasadam. People do not want to sit in rituals. When there is kirtan, jumping up and down, throwing flowers, taking prasadam. Lord Caitanya did large sankirtan where every living entity including animals participated with ecstasy.
They talk about inclusion, racial equality in the school, but they do not include animals…
“diminish one’s pride” – people are pride about car, watch, finger nail colors, dress,
Questions:
What happens to the supersoul when the creation gets annihilated.
BG 15.18
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 Vyāsadeva.