KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM HH HARIVILAS MAHARAJ’S MORNING BHAGAVATAM CLASS ON SB 2.2.23
- The materialistic scientist’s endeavor to reach other planets by mechanical vehicles is only a futile attempt. One cannot even go beyond Svarga or Janaloka by virtuous, mechanical, or materialistic activities, either gross or subtle.
- Whereas the transcendentalists are the unrestricted spacemen. They have nothing to do with the gross material body and can move anywhere within or beyond the material worlds. Nārada Muni is one of the examples of such spacemen, and Durvāsā Muni is one of such mystics.
- By the strength of devotional service, austerities, mystic powers, and transcendental knowledge, everyone can move like Nārada Muni or Durvāsā Muni.
- Durvāsā Muni traveled throughout the entirety of material space and part of spiritual space within one year only. The speed of the transcendentalists can never be attained by the gross or subtle materialists.
- It is very difficult for a person who is too materially affected to understand the personal nature of the Supreme Absolute Truth. Such materialists cannot even imagine that there is a transcendental body which is imperishable, full of knowledge and eternally blissful.
- They are too materially absorbed, the conception of retaining the personality after liberation from matter frightens them. When they are informed that spiritual life is also individual and personal, they become afraid of becoming persons again, and so they naturally prefer a kind of merging into the impersonal void.
- This is a kind of fearful stage of life, devoid of perfect knowledge of spiritual existence.
- There are many persons who cannot understand spiritual existence at all. Being embarrassed by so many theories and by contradictions of various types of philosophical speculation, they become disgusted or angry and foolishly conclude that there is no supreme cause and that everything is ultimately void.
- One has to get rid of all three stages of material consciousness: attachment to material life, fear of a spiritual personal identity, and the conception of void that arises from frustration in life.
- To get free from these three stages of the material concept of life, one has to take complete shelter of the Lord, guided by the bona fide spiritual master, and follow the disciplines and regulative principles of devotional life.
- Simply by giving aural reception to this Vedic literature, the feeling for loving devotional service to Lord Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, sprouts up at once to extinguish the fire of lamentation, illusion and fearfulness.
- The ultimate result of devotional service is to develop genuine love for the Supreme Personality.
- Loving devotional service to the Lord begins with hearing about the Lord. There is no difference between the Lord and the subject matter heard about Him. The Lord is absolute, therefore, hearing about Him means immediate contact with Him by the process of vibration of the transcendental sound.
- The transcendental sound is so effective that it acts at once by removing all material affections, complexities developed by material association, and the illusory encagement of the material body.
- By hearing the subject matter of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam this false complexity of materialism is removed, and real peace in society begins, which politicians aspire for so eagerly in so many political situations.
- Until we reach the stage of reestablishing our lost relation with Kṛṣṇa, the illusion of accepting the body as the self will prevail, and thus fearfulness will also prevail.
- The conclusion is that simply by hearing the Vedic literature Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, one can have direct connection with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, and thereby one can attain the highest perfection of life by transcending worldly miseries, illusion and fearfulness. These are practical tests for one who has actually given a submissive hearing to the readings of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.
SB 2.2.23 TRANSLATION
The transcendentalists are concerned with the spiritual body. As such, by the strength of their devotional service, austerities, mystic power, and transcendental knowledge, their movements are unrestricted, within and beyond the material worlds. The fruitive workers, or the gross materialists, can never move in such an unrestricted manner.
CLASS NOTES:
ONE CANNOT GO BEYOND SVARGA OR JANALOKA BY MECHANICAL OR MATERIALISTIC ACTIVITIES, EITHER GROSS OR SUBTLE.
The materialistic scientist’s endeavor to reach other planets by mechanical vehicles is only a futile attempt. One can, however, reach heavenly planets by virtuous activities, but one can never expect to go beyond Svarga or Janaloka by such mechanical or materialistic activities, either gross or subtle.
The transcendentalists who have nothing to do with the gross material body can move anywhere within or beyond the material worlds. Within the material worlds they move in the planetary systems of the Mahar-, Janas-, Tapas- and Satya-loka, and beyond the material worlds they can move in the Vaikuṇṭhas as unrestricted spacemen
By the strength of devotional service, austerities, mystic powers and transcendental knowledge, everyone can move like Nārada Muni or Durvāsā Muni. It is said that Durvāsā Muni traveled throughout the entirety of material space and part of spiritual space within one year only. The speed of the transcendentalists can never be attained by the gross or subtle materialists.
This is an interesting purport. SP is talking about incomprehensible unrestricted spacemen.. They have this concept of a man flying in the sky without any machine- They call him superman. But Superman never went beyond the sky of this earth.
But there are super spacemen like Narada muni, Durvasa muni who can go from one planet to another, spiritual world, and material world. Even with the best mechanical contraptions, we cannot emulate Narada Muni or Durvasa Muni. One must hear the message of Srimad Bhagavatam to understand the intricacies presented and how these unbelievable powers can be manifested by the spirit soul. The spirit soul when connected to Krsna, just like if you connect an electric wire to an electric source you get the power, similarly when we connect our soul consciously with Krsna, all that powerful energy will flow into us and we can do incredible things like Narada muni. Therefore yoga is connecting our consciousness with the Lord. This is explained in a lot of detail in BG 4.10.
BG 4.10
vīta-rāga-bhaya-krodhā
man-mayā mām upāśritāḥ
bahavo jñāna-tapasā
pūtā mad-bhāvam āgatāḥ
Being freed from attachment, fear and anger, being fully absorbed in Me and taking refuge in Me, many, many persons in the past became purified by knowledge of Me – and thus they all attained transcendental love for Me.
As described above, it is very difficult for a person who is too materially affected to understand the personal nature of the Supreme Absolute Truth. Such materialists cannot even imagine that there is a transcendental body which is imperishable, full of knowledge and eternally blissful.
Every living being has a transcendental body too which is covered by gross and subtle elements.
In the materialistic concept, the body is perishable, full of ignorance, and completely miserable. Therefore, people, in general, keep this same bodily idea in mind when they are informed of the personal form of the Lord.
Projecting their own limitations on Krsna
For such materialistic men, the form of the gigantic material manifestation is supreme. Consequently, they consider the Supreme to be impersonal.
Most people can understand the concept of God through Virat Rupa. If you study Virat Rupa you can understand personalism through understanding all the different part of the virat rupa as the parts of the body.
And because they are too materially absorbed, the conception of retaining the personality after liberation from matter frightens them. When they are informed that spiritual life is also individual and personal, they become afraid of becoming persons again, and so they naturally prefer a kind of merging into the impersonal void.
The fear of having a body after liberation makes them not to accept Supreme personality of Godhead and are attracted to Mayavadi philosophy.
Generally, they compare the living entities to the bubbles of the ocean, which merge into the ocean. That is the highest perfection of spiritual existence attainable without individual personality. This is a kind of fearful stage of life, devoid of perfect knowledge of spiritual existence.
Furthermore, there are many persons who cannot understand spiritual existence at all. Being embarrassed by so many theories and by contradictions of various types of philosophical speculation, they become disgusted or angry and foolishly conclude that there is no supreme cause and that everything is ultimately void. Sunyavadis.
Such people are in a diseased condition of life. Some people are too materially attached and therefore do not give attention to spiritual life, some of them want to merge into the supreme spiritual cause, and some of them disbelieve in everything (Buddhism), being angry at all sorts of spiritual speculation out of hopelessness. This last class of men takes to the shelter of some kind of intoxication, and their affective hallucinations are sometimes accepted as spiritual vision. There are religions like – Mormonism, Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah’s witnesses, all of them are somebody’s hallucinations.
One has to get rid of all three stages of material consciousness: attachment to material life, fear of a spiritual personal identity, and the conception of void that arises from frustration in life. To get free from these three stages of the material concept of life, one has to take complete shelter of the Lord, guided by the bona fide spiritual master, and follow the disciplines and regulative principles of devotional life. The last stage of the devotional life is called bhāva, or transcendental love of Godhead.
This fear of having personal spiritual identity is explained further in SB
SB 1.7.7
yasyāṁ vai śrūyamāṇāyāṁ
kṛṣṇe parama-pūruṣe
bhaktir utpadyate puṁsaḥ
śoka-moha-bhayāpahā
Simply by giving aural reception to this Vedic literature, the feeling for loving devotional service to Lord Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, sprouts up at once to extinguish the fire of lamentation, illusion and fearfulness.
There are various senses, of which the ear is the most effective. This sense works even when a man is deep asleep. One can protect himself from the hands of an enemy while awake, but while asleep one is protected by the ear only. The importance of hearing is mentioned here in connection with attaining the highest perfection of life, namely getting free from three material pangs.
The Primary Symptoms Of The Material Disease.
Everyone is full of lamentation at every moment, he is after the mirage of illusory things, and he is always afraid of his supposed enemy. These are the primary symptoms of the material disease.
And it is definitely suggested herein that simply by hearing the message of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, one gets attachment for the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, and as soon as this is effected the symptoms of the material disease disappear.
We have a disease worse than corona, that is lamentation, attachment to illusory things, fear of losing them..
KRSNA IS THE SUPREME PERSONALITY OF GODHEAD
Śrīla Vyāsadeva saw the all-perfect Personality of Godhead, and in this statement the all-perfect Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, is clearly confirmed.
THE ULTIMATE RESULT OF DEVOTIONAL SERVICE IS TO DEVELOP GENUINE LOVE FOR THE SUPREME PERSONALITY. Love is a word which is often used in relation with man and woman. And love is the only word that can be properly used to indicate the relation between Lord Kṛṣṇa and the living entities. The living entities are mentioned as prakṛti in the Bhagavad-gītā, and in Sanskrit prakṛti is a feminine object. The Lord is always described as the parama-puruṣa, or the supreme male personality. Thus the affection between the Lord and the living entities is something like that between the male and the female. Therefore the term love of Godhead is quite appropriate.
LOVING DEVOTIONAL SERVICE TO THE LORD BEGINS WITH HEARING ABOUT THE LORD.
There is no difference between the Lord and the subject matter heard about Him. The Lord is absolute in all respects, and thus there is no difference between Him and the subject matter heard about Him. Therefore, hearing about Him means immediate contact with Him by the process of vibration of the transcendental sound.
The ability to do miraculous things is possible if we are willing to hear everyday from the bonafide sources.. Sthane sthuthi… Hear the messages of Krsna from BG & SB.
And the transcendental sound is so effective that it acts at once by removing all material affections mentioned above. As mentioned before, a living entity develops a sort of complexity by material association, and the illusory encagement of the material body is accepted as an actual fact. Under such false complexity, the living beings under different categories of life become illusioned in different ways. Even in the most developed stage of human life, the same illusion prevails in the form of many isms and divides the loving relation with the Lord and thereby divides the loving relation between man and man.
Let’s say you are associated with a communist and he will introduce you to the concept of communism. The dialectic struggle between classes of people – landowners and capitalists. Hagles way of analyzing the history of mankind. The communist may not understand the Hagles theory he will explain to you the struggles between the 2 classes of men, a Buddhist will explain to you about voidism, an atheist says there is no God and only one life.
By hearing the subject matter of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam this false complexity of materialism is removed, and real peace in society begins, which politicians aspire for so eagerly in so many political situations.
PEACE CONFERENCES BY POLITICIANS CANNOT BRING PEACE
The politicians want a peaceful situation between man and man, and nation and nation, but at the same time, because of too much attachment for material domination, there is illusion and fearfulness. Therefore the politicians’ peace conferences cannot bring about peace in society. It can only be done by hearing the subject matter described in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam about the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa. The foolish politicians may go on holding peace and summit conferences for hundreds of years, but they will fail to achieve success.
People are avoiding hearing Srimad Bhagavatam every day.
Until we reach the stage of reestablishing our lost relation with Kṛṣṇa, the illusion of accepting the body as the self will prevail, and thus fearfulness will also prevail.
AS FOR THE VALIDITY OF ŚRĪ KṚṢṆA AS THE SUPREME PERSONALITY OF GODHEAD,
there are hundreds and thousands of evidences from revealed scriptures, and there are hundreds and thousands of evidences from personal experiences of devotees in various places like Vṛndāvana, Navadvīpa and Purī. Even in the Kaumudī dictionary the synonyms of Kṛṣṇa are given as “the son of Yaśodā” and “the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Parabrahman.”
The conclusion is that simply by hearing the Vedic literature Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, one can have direct connection with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa, and thereby one can attain the highest perfection of life by transcending worldly miseries, illusion and fearfulness. These are practical tests for one who has actually given a submissive hearing to the readings of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.