Live From Sri Mayapur Candrodaya Mandir!
Date: March 13th, 2011
Topic: Dhruva Maharaja Goes Back to Godhead
Verse: 4:12:37
Speaker: HH Bhakti Marg Swami
santah sama-drsah suddhah
sarva-bhutanuranjanah
yanty anjasacyuta-padam
acyuta-priya-bandhavah
TRANSLATION: Persons who are peaceful, equipoised, cleansed and purified, and who know the art of pleasing all other living entities, keep friendship only with devotees of the Lord; they alone can very easily achieve the perfection of going back home, back to Godhead.
PURPORT: The description of this verse fully indicates that only devotees are eligible to enter into the kingdom of Godhead. The first point stated is that devotees are peaceful, for they have no demands for their personal sense gratification. They are simply dedicated to the service of the Lord. Karmis cannot be peaceful because they have immense demands for sense gratification. As for jnanis, they cannot be peaceful because they are too busy trying to attain liberation or merge into the existence of the Supreme. Similarly, yogis are also restless to get mystic power. But a devotee is peaceful because he is fully surrendered to the Supreme Personality of Godhead and thinks of himself as completely helpless; just as a child feels complete peace in depending on the parent, so a devotee is completely peaceful, for he depends on the mercy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
A devotee is equipoised. He sees everyone on the same transcendental platform. A devotee knows that although a conditioned soul has a particular type of body according to his past fruitive activities, factually everyone is part of the Supreme Lord. A devotee sees all living entities with spiritual vision and does not discriminate on the platform of the bodily concept of life. Such qualities develop only in the association of devotees. Without the association of devotees, one cannot advance in Krishna consciousness. Therefore, we have established the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Factually, whoever lives in this society automatically develops Krishna consciousness.
Devotees are dear to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and the Supreme Personality of Godhead is only dear to devotees. On this platform only can one make progress in Krishna consciousness. Persons in Krishna consciousness, or devotees of the Lord, can please everyone, as is evident in the Krishna consciousness movement. We invite everyone, without discrimination; we request everyone to sit down and chant the Hare Krishna mantra and take as much prasada as wecan supply, and thus everyone is pleased with us. This is the qualification.
Sarva-bhutanuranjanah. As for purification, no one can be more pure than devotees. Anyone who once utters the name of Visnu immediately becomes purified, inside and outside (yah smaret pundarikaksam). Since a devotee constantly chants the Hare Krishna mantra, no contamination of the material world can touch him. He is, therefore, actually purified. Muci haya suci haya yadi krsna bhaje. It is said that even a cobbler or person born in the family of a obbler can be elevated to the position of a brahmana (suci) if he takes to Krishna consciousness. Any person who is purely Krishna conscious and who engages in chanting the Hare Krishna mantra is the purest in the whole universe. [End of Srila Prabhupada's purport to SB 4.12.37]
HH Bhakti Marg Swami: This particular part of the Srimad Bhagavatam is a very nice wrap up of the lila of Dhruva Maharaja who is one of the heroes that we find in the Bhagavata Purna, Srimad-Bhagavatam. I recall about seven years ago when I went to South Africa - I go there every year for the fabulous Ratha-yatra and we put together a drama about Dhruva and I asked for a cast of the local people, the Zulu folks. So the devotees had arranged that we had the indigenous devotees be the cast members and we did the whole story of Dhruva the Zulu style. All the actors were dressed in Zulu attire, skins and all and we just did the whole story pretty much verbatim as it is here but with a Zulu curve to it. We had so much fun and I got to understand and appreciate from this exercise that the universal truths that we find in Srimad-Bhagavatam can be found in all cultures of the world.
It was interesting in the Zulu tradition, we used some of their nomenclature, their name for God is and I hope I can pronounce it properly - Umkulukulu. Umkulukulu means, referring to God, He who has the greatest wealth of powers. Then there is the counterpart or the arch enemy of God who I guess can be converted and the name of that person, name of the devil or Satan is Tokoloshe can you say that? Tokoloshe. It is good to know that so if you ever go to that part of the world you know what you are supposed to avoid. Tokolokshe or maya or Satan or whatever nomenclature you want to use can be found anywhere and everywhere. What is nice about Dhruva and the story of Dhruva is that we can relate to him because it is a story of transformation.
Dhruva Maharaja was a young boy and he was a victim of abuse. Normal story. He was abused by his step mother and also his biological father. His mother was not very nice. Most ladies are nice and most people are nice but some are not. So his step mother Suruci said something that was quite evil to the core and she and of course and the father can be charged for big time child abuse, psychological child abuse.
When Dhruva, a five year old kid was just trying to play with his dad his step mom stopped him and said, "You can't do this. You cannot climb onto the lap of [End of recording]
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