KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM HH HARIVILAS MAHARAJ’S MORNING BHAGAVATAM CLASS ON SB 2.5.21
- The creation and annihilation of the material worlds is a regular action of the Lord just to allow the conditioned souls to play as they like and thereby create their own fate of being differently created again in terms of their independent desires at the time of annihilation.
- . The process of creation and annihilation is called anādi, or without reference to date regarding the time the creation first took place, because the duration of even a partial creation is 8,640,000,000 years
- The law of creation is, however, as mentioned in the Vedic literatures, that it is created at certain intervals and is again annihilated by the will of the Lord.
- The whole material or even the spiritual creation is a manifestation of the energy of the Lord, just as the light and heat of a fire are different manifestations of the fire’s energy. The Lord therefore exists in His impersonal form by such expansion of energy, and the complete creation rests on His impersonal feature.
- For human intelligence it is very difficult to conceive how the whole creation rests on His expansion of energy, but the Lord has given a very good example in the Bhagavad-gītā. It is said that although the air and the atoms rest within the huge expansion of the sky, which is like the resting reservoir of everything materially created, still the sky remains separate and unaffected.
- Similarly, although the Supreme Lord maintains everything created by His expansion of energy, He always remains separate.
- The whole creation merges within the body of transcendental Nārāyaṇa at the time of annihilation, and the creation emanates from His body again with the same unchanging categories of fate and individual nature.
- The aim of all sacrifices should be to please the Supreme Lord, Viṣṇu or Kṛṣṇa. Contact with matter is unavoidable in our present conditioned state, because while performing activities to sustain the body and to accomplish other purposes, we become intimate with material nature. But if we can spiritualize these activities by performing every one of them as a service to Brahman, the Supreme Absolute Truth, then these activities become yajña, or sacrifice.
- The Vaiṣṇavas say that anything connected with the Lord in devotional service is transcendental. In other words, it is nondifferent from the Supreme Lord Himself, Mādhava. Everything offered in sacrifice to the Absolute, or the Transcendence, becomes absolute, or transcendental.
- In the Bhagavad-gītā (14.27) Lord Kṛṣṇa says, “And I am the basis of the impersonal Brahman, which is the constitutional position of ultimate happiness.” This verse unequivocally declares that Brahman is Lord Kṛṣṇa’s bodily effulgence.
- Since Lord Kṛṣṇa is the source of Brahman, devotional service to Lord Kṛṣṇa establishes the true meaning of sarvaṁ khalv idaṁ brahma.
- since the performance of sacrifice culminates in the manifestation of real love for Lord Viṣṇu, loving devotional service to Lord Viṣṇu is the very best form of sacrifice. Such a stage can be also described as total absorption in Brahman.
- Persons who act in this way become progressively detached from matter and attached to Lord Kṛṣṇa’s devotional service. Thus they are able to purify the mirror of their hearts, extinguish the forest fire of material existence, and become situated in their original, spiritual position.
- They never fall from this stage of consciousness. Fully absorbed in their own transcendental identity, they are the complete masters of their senses.
- There are those who live and act in a manner exactly opposite to that of the pure souls,
who are constantly acting in karma-yoga. Such fruitive workers have no connection with the Supreme Lord, Kṛṣṇa. - They cannot cleanse their heart of material contamination. They are slaves of their sensual urges, spending their time in gratifying their senses according to their whims. Yet they shamelessly say that all their actions are prompted by the Supreme Lord.
- If a person fails to inform himself about the very subtle laws and workings of material nature, and at the same time he argues that all activities are sanctioned and inspired by the Supreme Lord, then he is reducing the Supreme Lord’s position and making Him out to be partial and unjust.
- The Lord never favors one and discriminates against another. Factually, He advises everyone to give up all material activities, which are by nature unstable and temporary.
- Because of the forgetfulness of God, a man becomes an eternal victim of ignorance, which then colors all his actions.
SB 2.5.21
The Lord, who is the controller of all energies, thus creates, by His own potency, eternal time, the fate of all living entities, and their particular nature, for which they were created, and He again merges them independently
CLASS NOTES:
The creation of the material world, wherein the conditioned souls are allowed to act subordinately by the Supreme Lord, takes place again and again after being repeatedly annihilated. The material creation is something like a cloud in the unlimited sky. The real sky is the spiritual sky, eternally filled with the rays of the brahmajyoti, and a portion of this unlimited sky is covered by the mahat-tattva cloud of the material creation, in which the conditioned souls, who want to lord it against the will of the Lord, are put into play as they desire, under the control of the Lord by the agency of His external energy. As the rainy season appears and disappears regularly, the creation takes place and is again annihilated under the control of the Lord, as confirmed in the Bhagavad-gītā (8.19). So the creation and annihilation of the material worlds is a regular action of the Lord just to allow the conditioned souls to play as they like and thereby create their own fate of being differently created again in terms of their independent desires at the time of annihilation. The creation, therefore, takes place at a historical date (as we are accustomed to think of everything which has a beginning in our tiny experience). The process of creation and annihilation is called anādi, or without reference to date regarding the time the creation first took place, because the duration of even a partial creation is 8,640,000,000 years. The law of creation is, however, as mentioned in the Vedic literatures, that it is created at certain intervals and is again annihilated by the will of the Lord. The whole material or even the spiritual creation is a manifestation of the energy of the Lord, just as the light and heat of a fire are different manifestations of the fire’s energy. The Lord therefore exists in His impersonal form by such expansion of energy, and the complete creation rests on His impersonal feature. Nonetheless He keeps Himself distinct from such creation as the pūrṇam (or complete), and so no one should wrongly think that His personal feature is not existent due to His impersonal unlimited expansions. The impersonal expansion is a manifestation of His energy, and He is always in His personal feature despite His innumerable unlimited expansions of impersonal energies (Bg. 9.5-7). For human intelligence it is very difficult to conceive how the whole creation rests on His expansion of energy, but the Lord has given a very good example in the Bhagavad-gītā. It is said that although the air and the atoms rest within the huge expansion of the sky, which is like the resting reservoir of everything materially created, still the sky remains separate and unaffected. Similarly, although the Supreme Lord maintains everything created by His expansion of energy, He always remains separate. This is accepted even by Śaṅkarācārya, the great advocate of the impersonal form of the Absolute. He says nārāyaṇaḥ paro ’vyaktāt, or Nārāyaṇa exists separately, apart from the impersonal creative energy. The whole creation thus merges within the body of transcendental Nārāyaṇa at the time of annihilation, and the creation emanates from His body again with the same unchanging categories of fate and individual nature. The individual living entities, being parts and parcels of the Lord, are sometimes described as ātmā, qualitatively one in spiritual constitution. But because such living entities are apt to be attracted to the material creation, actively and subjectively, they are therefore different from the Lord.
Questions –
BG 8.17, 8.18, 8.19
There are 3 annihilations – end of brahma day, end of brahma life, end of manu
SB canto 1.9
There are 8.4 m, species of life of which 430,000 species of humans. Out of which there are very few who are civilized. They follow the yama and niyamas. It is a rare thing in the human body to try to become KC. Most people are enamored by the possibility of dominating and controlling nature. But nature cannot be dominated, it is impossible. it is energy of Krsna and therefore it is a hopeless endeavor. Living entity is not supposed to be independent and dominate nature.
Inorder to try and dominate the nature, one has to forge Krsna. In this impossible endeavor they suffer. The only chance to come out of this is to seek the guidance of a bonafide spiritual master.
No one can escape the laws of nature – Birth, death, old age and disease. People try to escape and end up in suffering, frustration, … Unless we understand how we are illusioned and covered by maya,
Maya has two duties – avaranatmika, prasnatmika
Matter, Knowledge, activity – mundane makes us subject to threefold miseries. Adhibhuta, adhyatmika, adhidaiva..
Finally being engaged in activities of sense gratification, we are covered by maya oblivious of what is the purpose of life.
The way to become free of this enterprise – The solution is explained in BG 4.24
(BG 4.24) How one can attain spiritual knowledge by performing activities that please the lord
RTW_1.19
As Lord Kṛṣṇa says in the Gītā (4.24),
A person who is fully absorbed in Kṛṣṇa consciousness is sure to attain the spiritual kingdom because of his full contribution to spiritual activities, in which the consummation is absolute and that which is offered is of the same spiritual nature.
This verse explains how one can attain spiritual knowledge by performing activities that please the Supreme Lord.
Śrīpāda Śaṅkarācārya propounded the impersonal theory, citing phrases like sarvaṁ khalv idaṁ brahma: “By nature everything is Brahman, spirit.” Śaṅkarācārya’s theory has caused great confusion about established scriptural conclusions, but this phrase clearly supports the Gītā verse quoted above.
At this point it is urgent that we discuss how one can perform devotional service for the Supreme Lord’s pleasure. In this regard it is also noteworthy how saintly leaders like King Janaka executed karma-yoga, or devotional service, by performing sacrifice. The aim of all sacrifices should be to please the Supreme Lord, Viṣṇu or Kṛṣṇa. Contact with matter is unavoidable in our present conditioned state, because while performing activities to sustain the body and to accomplish other purposes, we become intimate with material nature. But if we can spiritualize these activities by performing every one of them as a service to Brahman, the Supreme Absolute Truth, then these activities become yajña, or sacrifice. When the Vedic phrase sarvaṁ khalv idaṁ brahma is interpreted in this way, it is acceptable. In other words, when one invokes the spiritual or transcendental or absolute in everything, then matter loses its mundaneness, and then only can one realize the perfect meaning of the phrase sarvaṁ khalv idaṁ brahma. The Vaiṣṇavas say that anything connected with the Lord in devotional service is transcendental. In other words, it is nondifferent from the Supreme Lord Himself, Mādhava. Just as iron in long and constant touch with fire loses the characteristics of iron and becomes fiery, so everything offered in sacrifice to the Absolute, or the Transcendence, becomes absolute, or transcendental.
In the Bhagavad-gītā (14.27) Lord Kṛṣṇa says, “And I am the basis of the impersonal Brahman, which is the constitutional position of ultimate happiness.” This verse unequivocally declares that Brahman is Lord Kṛṣṇa’s bodily effulgence. Since Lord Kṛṣṇa is the source of Brahman, devotional service to Lord Kṛṣṇa establishes the true meaning of sarvaṁ khalv idaṁ brahma. A sacrifice is properly performed only when all the sacrificial ingredients—the offerings, the fire, the ghee, and so on—become spiritualized, or reach the stage of Brahman, by their contact with Lord Kṛṣṇa. And since the performance of sacrifice culminates in the manifestation of real love for Lord Viṣṇu, loving devotional service to Lord Viṣṇu is the very best form of sacrifice. Such a stage can be also described as total absorption in Brahman.
Persons who act in this way become progressively detached from matter and attached to Lord Kṛṣṇa’s devotional service. Thus they are able to purify the mirror of their hearts, extinguish the forest fire of material existence, and become situated in their original, spiritual position. They exist at a level of realization far above the impersonal realization of the Absolute, for they are free from the contamination of vainly trying to merge with the Supreme and usurping His Absolute position. They never fall from this stage of consciousness. Fully absorbed in their own transcendental identity, they are the complete masters of their senses. They are the perfect persons to rule this universe, if they so desire, and they alone bring good fortune to everyone. The conditioned souls, however, are unable to benefit the world in any way. The purified, rare souls continuously perform karma-yoga and are always in a liberated state. In the Bhagavad-gītā (5.7) it is stated,
One who works in devotion, who is a pure soul, and who controls his mind and senses is dear to everyone. Though always working, such a man is never entangled.
There are those who live and act in a manner exactly opposite to that of the pure souls,
who are constantly acting in karma-yoga. Such fruitive workers have no connection with the Supreme Lord, Kṛṣṇa. Therefore, they cannot cleanse their heart of material contamination. They are slaves of their sensual urges, spending their time in gratifying their senses according to their whims. Yet they shamelessly say that all their actions are prompted by the Supreme Lord. Being cheaters and atheists, they speak like this so that their impious acts may be acceptable, and thus they inflict untold misfortunes and calamities on the world.
By contrast, the pure, self-realized souls are constantly absorbed in serving Lord Kṛṣṇa’s lotus feet with their body, mind, and words. They never associate with atheistic people. These saintly persons know that although the spirit soul is infinitesimal, it is nevertheless endowed with minute free will at all times. The Supreme Lord is absolutely independent and can exercise absolute free will over all; because the spirit soul is qualitatively the same as the Supreme Lord, the Lord does not annul his minute free will.
The spirit soul unfortunately misuses this God-given minute free will and falls into the dark well of nescience and illusion. Once the spirit soul takes shelter of māyā, the illusory material energy, he develops the material qualities of goodness, passion, and ignorance. The spirit soul loses his original characteristics and develops a new nature, which is controlled by the three modes of material nature, and this continues until such time as he transcends them.
“New nature” – sense gratification as the purpose of life, movies, books, everything is directing people towards sense gratification.
His actions are prompted accordingly. If it happened in any other way, then material variegatedness would not be visible in this phenomenal world. So if a person fails to inform himself about the very subtle laws and workings of material nature, and at the same time he argues that all activities are sanctioned and inspired by the Supreme Lord, then he is reducing the Supreme Lord’s position and making Him out to be partial and unjust. The Lord never favors one and discriminates against another. Factually, He advises everyone to give up all material activities, which are by nature unstable and temporary. Because of forgetfulness of God, a man becomes an eternal victim of ignorance, which then colours all his actions. The Bhagavad-gītā (5.14) says,
Om – means I have only one desire – desire to please the lord. As soon as you add more things to Om then the desires multiply..
The embodied spirit, master of the city of his body, does not create activities, nor does he induce people to act, nor does he create the fruits of action. All this is enacted by the modes of material nature.
Therefore all activities except those performed as a sacrifice to Lord Viṣṇu are whimsical actions done of one’s own volition. They are not performed under the Supreme Lord’s direction or sanction. Since such activities stem from the material modes of nature, they are automatically under nature’s total control. The Supreme Lord is merely an impartial and silent witness to such activities.
Sankaracharya came with the theory -sarvam kalam idam dharmam – Cancel, Krsna, Cancel Individuality, ultimate cancel culture of everything. His point was that it is an impersonal theory. He says – Brahma Satyam Jagat Mithyam… His philosophy has caused tremendous confusion about what scriptures actually say and mean. He gave a false interpretation of veda pramanas. The question is how a person can become free from the cycle of birth and death. Only by devotional service under the guidance of shiksha and diksha gurus spiritualize the normal activities. How can we spiritualize our daily activities?
When you realize that everything is Brahman which is the energy of Krsna, everything can be used in the service of the Lord and make it spiritual. Anything connected to Krsna is transcendental. When you take this matter and use it in service of the lord, the spiritual nature of the apara prakriti comes out. When you offer food it becomes spiritual, marble when made a deity becomes spiritual.