KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM HH HARIVILAS MAHARAJ’S MORNING BHAGAVATAM CLASS ON SB 2.9.26 & 27:
- The whole manifestation is the Lord Himself by diffusion of His different energies only, namely the internal, external and marginal, just as the sunlight is the manifestation of the energy of the sun planet.
- Such energy is simultaneously one with and different from the Lord, just as the sunshine is simultaneously one with and different from the sun planet.
- The energies are acting by combination and permutation by the indication of the Lord, and the acting agents, like Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Śiva, are also different incarnations of the Lord.
- Perfection of desires may be achieved when one desires to serve the Lord, and the Lord also desires that every living entity banish all personal desires and cooperate with His desires. That is the last instruction of the Bhagavad-gītā.
- Brahmājī agreed to this proposal, and therefore he is given the responsible post of creating generations in the vacant universe.
- Oneness with the Lord therefore consists of dovetailing one’s desires with the desires of the Supreme Lord. That makes for the perfection of all desires.
- BG 14.19- When one properly sees that in all activities no other performer is at work than these modes of nature and he knows the Supreme Lord, who is transcendental to all these modes, he attains My spiritual nature.
- One can transcend all the activities of the modes of material nature simply by understanding them properly by learning from the proper souls.
- The real spiritual master is Kṛṣṇa, and He is imparting this spiritual knowledge to Arjuna.
- Similarly, it is from those who are fully in Kṛṣṇa consciousness that one has to learn this science of activities in terms of the modes of nature. Otherwise, one’s life will be misdirected.
- Unless one has the help of spiritual authority, he cannot understand in what position he is actually situated.
- A man in Kṛṣṇa consciousness is not controlled by the spell of the material modes of nature.
- Although one is within this material body, by his advancement in spiritual knowledge he can be free from the influence of the modes of nature.
- Devotional service in Kṛṣṇa consciousness is the sign of liberation from material entanglement. When one is freed from the influence of the modes of material nature, he enters into devotional service.
- BG 14.20 – When the embodied being is able to transcend these three modes associated with the material body, he can become free from birth, death, old age and their distresses and can enjoy nectar even in this life.
- When one is conscious of the material body, he acts only for sense gratification, but when one transfers the consciousness to Kṛṣṇa, sense gratification automatically stops.
- One does not need this material body, and he does not need to accept the dictations of the material body
- He does not desire to enjoy the body, nor does he desire to get out of it. Thus transcendentally situated, the devotee becomes automatically free.
- He need not try to become free from the influence of the modes of material nature.
- When one acts in Kṛṣṇa consciousness for the satisfaction of the senses of Kṛṣṇa, any action, whether of the body, mind, intelligence or even the senses, is purified of material contamination. There are no material reactions resulting from the activities of a Kṛṣṇa conscious person.
- When one applies everything produced of the body, mind, intelligence, words, life, wealth, etc. – whatever he may have within his possession – to Kṛṣṇa’s service, he is at once dovetailed with Kṛṣṇa.
- He is one with Kṛṣṇa and is devoid of the false ego that leads one to believe that he is the body, etc. This is the perfect stage of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
- All the demigods and their exalted qualities, such as religion, knowledge and renunciation, become manifest in the body of one who has developed unalloyed devotion for the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Vāsudeva.
- A person devoid of devotional service and engaged in material activities has no good qualities.
- All living entities are part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa, and therefore when they revive their original Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they possess all the good qualities of Kṛṣṇa in a small quantity.
- When one engages himself in the nine processes of devotional service (śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ …), one’s heart becomes purified, and he immediately understands his relationship with Kṛṣṇa. He then revives his original quality of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
SB 2.9.26 TRANSLATION
In spite of that, my Lord, I am praying to You to kindly fulfill my desire. May I please be informed how, in spite of Your transcendental form, You assume the mundane form, although You have no such form at all.
SB 2.9.27 TRANSLATION
And [please inform me] how You, by Your own Self, manifest different energies for annihilation, generation, acceptance and maintenance by combination and permutation.
The whole manifestation is the Lord Himself by diffusion of His different energies only, namely the internal, external and marginal, just as the sunlight is the manifestation of the energy of the sun planet. Such energy is simultaneously one with and different from the Lord, just as the sunshine is simultaneously one with and different from the sun planet. The energies are acting by combination and permutation by the indication of the Lord, and the acting agents, like Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Śiva, are also different incarnations of the Lord. In other words, there is nothing but the Lord, and still the Lord is different from all such manifestive activities. How it is so will be explained later on.
SB 2.9.25
The impersonalists recommend that one should become desireless, and others recommend banishing desires altogether. That is impossible; no one can banish desires altogether because desiring is the living symptom. Without having desires a living entity would be dead, which he is not. Therefore, living conditions and desire go together. Perfection of desires may be achieved when one desires to serve the Lord, and the Lord also desires that every living entity banish all personal desires and cooperate with His desires. That is the last instruction of the Bhagavad-gītā. Brahmājī agreed to this proposal, and therefore he is given the responsible post of creating generations in the vacant universe. Oneness with the Lord therefore consists of dovetailing one’s desires with the desires of the Supreme Lord. That makes for the perfection of all desires.
Understanding this point is the turning point in out life.
BG 14.19
When one properly sees that in all activities no other performer is at work than these modes of nature and he knows the Supreme Lord, who is transcendental to all these modes, he attains My spiritual nature.
Understand in the material life that we are forced to do things by the influence of the modes of the material nature. Krsna is above the modes of material nature. Mayavadis say that Krsna is also under the influence of the modes.
One can transcend all the activities of the modes of material nature simply by understanding them properly by learning from the proper souls. The real spiritual master is Kṛṣṇa, and He is imparting this spiritual knowledge to Arjuna. Similarly, it is from those who are fully in Kṛṣṇa consciousness that one has to learn this science of activities in terms of the modes of nature. Otherwise, one’s life will be misdirected. By the instruction of a bona fide spiritual master, a living entity can know of his spiritual position, his material body, his senses, how he is entrapped, and how he is under the spell of the material modes of nature. He is helpless, being in the grip of these modes, but when he can see his real position, then he can attain to the transcendental platform, having the scope for spiritual life. Actually, the living entity is not the performer of different activities. He is forced to act because he is situated in a particular type of body, conducted by some particular mode of material nature. Unless one has the help of spiritual authority, he cannot understand in what position he is actually situated. With the association of a bona fide spiritual master, he can see his real position, and by such an understanding he can become fixed in full Kṛṣṇa consciousness. A man in Kṛṣṇa consciousness is not controlled by the spell of the material modes of nature. It has already been stated in the Seventh Chapter that one who has surrendered to Kṛṣṇa is relieved from the activities of material nature. For one who is able to see things as they are, the influence of material nature gradually ceases.
BG 14.20
When the embodied being is able to transcend these three modes associated with the material body, he can become free from birth, death, old age and their distresses and can enjoy nectar even in this life.
How one can stay in the transcendental position, even in this body, in full Kṛṣṇa consciousness, is explained in this verse. The Sanskrit word dehī means “embodied.” Although one is within this material body, by his advancement in spiritual knowledge he can be free from the influence of the modes of nature. He can enjoy the happiness of spiritual life even in this body because, after leaving this body, he is certainly going to the spiritual sky. But even in this body he can enjoy spiritual happiness. In other words, devotional service in Kṛṣṇa consciousness is the sign of liberation from material entanglement, and this will be explained in the Eighteenth Chapter. When one is freed from the influence of the modes of material nature, he enters into devotional service.
BG 14.21
Arjuna inquired: O my dear Lord, by which symptoms is one known who is transcendental to these three modes? What is his behavior? And how does he transcend the modes of nature?
the symptoms of such a transcendental person?
how he lives and what his activities are. Are they regulated or nonregulated?
the means by which he can attain the transcendental nature?
Symptoms of a pure devotee –
Reduce eating mating sleeping mating
Will not waste even one second of their life.
Gautama muni –
Is always chanting. Narada muni asked him to build a hut so you can be protected from weather. He refused to because he did not want to even waste one second. Krishna has given different possibilities. You can sit under a tree and chant.
Dictations of the mind –
Beat your head a hundred times with an old show, as soon as you wake up.
Work so hard in KC all day long so you forget everything and sleep as soon as you hit the bed.
BG 14.22-25
How to identify a person who has transcended the modes
The qualities of a person who transcended the modes
The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: O son of Pāṇḍu, he who does not hate illumination, attachment and delusion when they are present or long for them when they disappear; who is unwavering and undisturbed through all these reactions of the material qualities, remaining neutral and transcendental, knowing that the modes alone are active; who is situated in the self and regards alike happiness and distress; who looks upon a lump of earth, a stone and a piece of gold with an equal eye; who is equal toward the desirable and the undesirable; who is steady, situated equally well in praise and blame, honor and dishonor; who treats alike both friend and enemy; and who has renounced all material activities – such a person is said to have transcended the modes of nature.
Arjuna submitted three different questions, and the Lord answers them one after another. In these verses, Kṛṣṇa first indicates that a person transcendentally situated has no envy and does not hanker for anything. When a living entity stays in this material world embodied by the material body, it is to be understood that he is under the control of one of the three modes of material nature. When he is actually out of the body, then he is out of the clutches of the material modes of nature. But as long as he is not out of the material body, he should be neutral. He should engage himself in the devotional service of the Lord so that his identity with the material body will automatically be forgotten. When one is conscious of the material body, he acts only for sense gratification, but when one transfers the consciousness to Kṛṣṇa, sense gratification automatically stops. One does not need this material body, and he does not need to accept the dictations of the material body. The qualities of the material modes in the body will act, but as spirit soul the self is aloof from such activities. How does he become aloof? He does not desire to enjoy the body, nor does he desire to get out of it. Thus transcendentally situated, the devotee becomes automatically free. He need not try to become free from the influence of the modes of material nature.
The next question concerns the dealings of a transcendentally situated person. The materially situated person is affected by so-called honor and dishonor offered to the body, but the transcendentally situated person is
- not affected by such false honor and dishonor. He performs his duty in Kṛṣṇa consciousness and does not mind whether a man honors or dishonors him.
- He accepts things that are favorable for his duty in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, otherwise he has no necessity of anything material, either a stone or gold.
- He takes everyone as his dear friend who helps him in his execution of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, and he does not hate his so-called enemy.
- He is equally disposed and sees everything on an equal level because he knows perfectly well that he has nothing to do with material existence.
- Social and political issues do not affect him, because he knows the situation of temporary upheavals and disturbances.
- He does not attempt anything for his own sake. He can attempt anything for Kṛṣṇa, but for his personal self he does not attempt anything. By such behavior one becomes actually transcendentally situated.
Two types of devotional service – by working for Krsna, or by offering the results of the work to Krsna.
Kolavecha Sridhar
BG 5.11
The yogīs, abandoning attachment, act with body, mind, intelligence and even with the senses, only for the purpose of purification.
When one acts in Kṛṣṇa consciousness for the satisfaction of the senses of Kṛṣṇa, any action, whether of the body, mind, intelligence or even the senses, is purified of material contamination. There are no material reactions resulting from the activities of a Kṛṣṇa conscious person. Therefore purified activities, which are generally called sad-ācāra, can be easily performed by acting in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī in his Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu (1.2.187) describes this as follows:
īhā yasya harer dāsye
karmaṇā manasā girā
“A person acting in Kṛṣṇa consciousness (or, in other words, in the service of Kṛṣṇa) with his body, mind, intelligence and words is a liberated person even within the material world, although he may be engaged in many so-called material activities.” He has no false ego, for he does not believe that he is this material body, or that he possesses the body. He knows that he is not this body and that this body does not belong to him. He himself belongs to Kṛṣṇa, and the body too belongs to Kṛṣṇa. When he applies everything produced of the body, mind, intelligence, words, life, wealth, etc. – whatever he may have within his possession – to Kṛṣṇa’s service, he is at once dovetailed with Kṛṣṇa. He is one with Kṛṣṇa and is devoid of the false ego that leads one to believe that he is the body, etc. This is the perfect stage of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Identification with the body is the source of false ego.
Gopis think that their bodies belong to Krsna and not them,
CC ADI 4.181
Now, whatever affection we see the gopīs show for their own bodies, know it for certain to be only for the sake of Lord Kṛṣṇa.
The selfless love of Godhead exhibited by the gopīs cannot have any parallel. We should not, therefore, misunderstand the carefulness of the gopīs in their personal decoration. The gopīs dressed themselves as beautifully as possible just to make Kṛṣṇa happy by seeing them. They had no ulterior desires. They dedicated their bodies, and everything they possessed, to the service of Śrī Kṛṣṇa, taking it for granted that their bodies were meant for His enjoyment. They dressed themselves with the understanding that Kṛṣṇa would be happy by seeing and touching them.
CC ADI 4.182
[The gopīs think:] “I have offered this body to Lord Kṛṣṇa. He is its owner, and it brings Him enjoyment.
CC ADI 4.183
“Kṛṣṇa finds joy in seeing and touching this body.” It is for this reason that they cleanse and decorate their bodies.
SP one said – Why are women going topless and bottomless. They are inviting you to enjoy them..
CC ADI 4.184
“O Arjuna, there are no greater receptacles of deep love for Me than the gopīs, who cleanse and decorate their bodies because they consider them Mine.”
CC ADI 4.185
There is another wonderful feature of the emotion of the gopīs. Its power is beyond the comprehension of the intelligence.
CC ADI 4.186
When the gopīs see Lord Kṛṣṇa, they derive unbounded bliss, although they have no desire for such pleasure.
CC ADI 4.187
The gopīs taste a pleasure ten million times greater than the pleasure Lord Kṛṣṇa derives from seeing them.
Purport
The wonderful characteristics of the gopīs are beyond imagination. They have no desire for personal satisfaction, yet when Kṛṣṇa is happy by seeing them, that happiness of Kṛṣṇa makes the gopīs a million times more happy than Kṛṣṇa Himself.
CC ADI 4.188
The gopīs have no inclination for their own enjoyment, and yet their joy increases. That is indeed a contradiction.
SB 5.18.12
All the demigods and their exalted qualities, such as religion, knowledge and renunciation, become manifest in the body of one who has developed unalloyed devotion for the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Vāsudeva. On the other hand, a person devoid of devotional service and engaged in material activities has no good qualities. Even if he is adept at the practice of mystic yoga or the honest endeavor of maintaining his family and relatives, he must be driven by his own mental speculations and must engage in the service of the Lord’s external energy. How can there be any good qualities in such a man?
As explained in the next verse, Kṛṣṇa is the original source of all living entities. This is confirmed in Bhagavad-gītā (15.7), wherein Kṛṣṇa says:
mamaivāṁśo jīva-loke
“The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal, fragmental parts. Due to conditioned life, they are struggling very hard with the six senses, which include the mind.” All living entities are part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa, and therefore when they revive their original Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they possess all the good qualities of Kṛṣṇa in a small quantity. When one engages himself in the nine processes of devotional service (śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ smaraṇaṁ pāda-sevanam/ arcanaṁ vandanaṁ dāsyaṁ sakhyam ātma-nivedanam), one’s heart becomes purified, and he immediately understands his relationship with Kṛṣṇa. He then revives his original quality of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
In the Ādi-līlā of Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Chapter Eight, there is a description of some of the qualities of devotees. For example, Śrī Paṇḍita Haridāsa is described as being
very well-behaved, tolerant, peaceful, magnanimous and grave. he spoke very sweetly, his endeavors were very pleasing, he was always patient, he respected everyone, he always worked for everyone’s benefit, his mind was free of duplicity, and he was completely devoid of all malicious activities. These are all originally qualities of Kṛṣṇa, and when one becomes a devotee they automatically become manifest. Śrī Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja, the author of Caitanya-caritāmṛta, says that all good qualities become manifest in the body of a Vaiṣṇava and that only by the presence of these good qualities can one distinguish a Vaiṣṇava from a non-Vaiṣṇava.
Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja lists the following twenty-six good qualities of a Vaiṣṇava:
(1) He is very kind to everyone. (2) He does not make anyone his enemy. (3) He is truthful. (4) He is equal to everyone. (5) No one can find any fault in him. (6) He is magnanimous. (7) He is mild. (8) He is always clean. (9) He is without possessions. (10) He works for everyone’s benefit. (11) He is very peaceful. (12) He is always surrendered to Kṛṣṇa. (13) He has no material desires. (14) He is very meek. (15) He is steady. (16) He controls his senses. (17) He does not eat more than required. (18) He is not influenced by the Lord’s illusory energy. (19) He offers respect to everyone. (20) He does not desire any respect for himself. (21) He is very grave. (22) He is merciful. (23) He is friendly. (24) He is poetic. (25) He is expert. (26) He is silent.