LECTURE BY HIS HOLINESS BHAKTI CARU SWAMI ON SRIMAD BHAGAVATAM 04-25-33 ON 1 OCTOBER 2010.

Transcription : Krishna Dasa, Shyamal Krishna Dasa, Nimesh, Godavari Dasi, Ramananda Raya Dasa.
Editing : Ramananda Raya Dasa

Audio Reference :  http://www.bcswami.com/2010/10/29/origin-of-the-living-entity-srimad-bhagavatam-4-25-33

Jaya Radha-Madhava Kunja-Vihari
Gopi-Jana-Vallabha Giri-Vara-Dhari
Yasoda-Nandana Braja-Jana-Ranjana
Yamuna-Tira-Vana-Cari

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare

Jaya om visnu-pada paramahamsa parivrajakacarya astottara-sata Sri Srimad A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaja Prabhupada ki jaya!

Ananta koti vaisnava-vrnda ki jaya!

Namacarya Srila Haridasa Thakura ki jaya!

Premse kaho Sri Krsna Caitanya, Prabhu Nityananda, Sri Advaita, Gadadhara, Srivasadi Gaura-bhakta-vrnda ki jaya!

Sri Sri Radha-Krsna, Gopa-Gopinatha, Syama-kunda, Radha-kunda, Giri-Govardhana ki jaya!

Vrndavana-dhama ki jaya!

Navadvipa-dhama ki jaya!

Yamuna-mayi ki jaya!

Ganga-mayi ki jaya!

Tulasi-devi ki jaya!

Bhakti-devi ki jaya!

Gaura-premanande hari-haribol!

“Chant the names of the Lord in the ecstasy of love for Lord Caitanya.”

Samaveta bhakta-vrnda ki jaya!

“All glories to the assembled devotees.”

Srimad-Bhagavatam 4.25.33:

na vidama vayam samyak
kartaram purusarsabha
atmanas ca parasyapi
gotram nama ca yat-krtam

SYNONYMS
na — do not; vidama — know; vayam — I; samyak — perfectly; kartaram —maker; purusa-rsabha — O best of human beings; atmanah — of myself; ca— and; parasya — of others; api — also; gotram — family history; nama —name; ca — and; yat-krtam — which has been made by whom.

TRANSLATION
The girl said: O best of human beings, I do not know who has begottenme. I cannot speak to you perfectly about this. Nor do I know the namesor the origin of the associates with me.

PURPORT
The living entity is ignorant of his origin. He does not know why thismaterial world was created, why others are working in this materialworld and what the ultimate source of this manifestation is. No oneknows the answers to these questions, and this is called ignorance. Byresearching into the origin of life, important scientists are findingsome chemical compositions or cellular combinations, but actually noone knows the original source of life within this material world. Thephrase brahma-jijnasa is used to indicate an inquisitiveness to knowthe original source of our existence in this material world. Nophilosopher, scientist or politician actually knows wherefrom we havecome, why we are here struggling so hard for existence and where wewill go. Generally people are of the opinion that we are all hereaccidentally and that as soon as these bodies are finished all ourdramatic activities will be finished and we will become zero. Suchscientists and philosophers are impersonalists and voidists. In thisverse the girl is expressing the actual position of the living entity.She cannot tell Purañjana her father’s name because she does not knowfrom where she has come. Nor does she know why she is present in thatplace. She frankly says that she does not know anything about all this.This is the position of the living entity in the material world. Thereare so many scientists, philosophers and big leaders, but they do notknow wherefrom they have come, nor do they know why they are busywithin this material world to obtain a position of so-called happiness.In this material world we have many nice facilities for living, but weare so foolish that we do not ask who has made this world habitable forus and has arranged it so nicely. Everything is functioning in order,but people foolishly think that they are produced by chance in thismaterial world and that after death they will become zero. They thinkthat this beautiful place of habitation will automatically remain.

om ajnana-timirandhasya
jnananjana-salakaya
caksur unmilitam yena
tasmai sri-gurave namah

sri-caitanya-mano-’bhistam
sthapitam yena bhu-tale
svayam rupah kada mahyam
dadati sva-padantikam

vande ‘ham sri-guroh sri-yuta-pada-kamalam sri-gurun vaisnavams ca
sri-rupam sagrajatam saha-gana-raghunathanvitam tam sa-jivam
sadvaitam savadhutam parijana-sahitam krsna-caitanya-devam
sri-radha-krsna-padan saha-gana-lalita-sri-visakhanvitams ca

he krsna karuna-sindho
dina-bandho jagat-pate
gopesa gopika-kanta
radha-kanta namo ‘stu te

tapta kancana gaurangi
radhe vrndavanesvari
vrsabhanu-sute devi
pranamami hari-priye

vancha-kalpatarubhyas ca
krpa-sindhubhya eva ca
patitanam pavanebhyo
vaisnavebhyo namo namah

sri-krsna-caitanya
prabhu-nityananda
sri-advaita gadadhara
srivasadi-gaura-bhakta-vrnda

hare krsna hare krsna
krsna krsna hare hare
hare rama hare rama
rama rama hare hare

SB 04-25-33

na vidama vayam samyak
kartaram purusarsabha
atmanas ca parasyapi
gotram nama ca yat-krtam

The girl said: O best of human beings, I do not know who hasbegotten me. I cannot speak to you perfectly about this. Nor do I knowthe names or the origin of the associates with me.

So, this is the story of king Puranjana. King Puranjana is theliving entity. The living entity is travelling in this material nature,transmigrating from one body to another. And in course of his journeysometimes he is going up and sometimes going down. Sometimes he isgoing up to the higher planetary systems where he has wonderfulfacilities for sense gratification and sometimes he’s going down to thelower planetary system, where also they have sense gratification butthey are subterranean planets, there that sense gratification is therebut of a different kind.

So in the material nature the living entity is transmigrating fromone body to another body and is trying to enjoy. bhramayansarva-bhutani yantrarudhani mayaya (BG 18.61). Mayaya by thearrangement of the external energy of the Lord, Maya, bhramayan istravelling, sarva-bhutani, all the living entities, yantrarudhani,riding in a machine, yantra riding in a vehicle. What is the vehicle?This body is the vehicle. And sometimes we are getting a body, superiortype of body providing higher facilities of enjoyment and sometimes weare getting a body which is subject to various kinds of sufferings.

So that is the condition of a living entity in this material nature.Puranjana was travelling and in course of his travel Puranjana came toa very special place, the land of Bharat-varsha. Northern part is theHimalayan mountains and in the southern part is the salt water ocean.And in this land of Bharat-varsha he got a very special body, the bodyof a human being. And in course of his travel he came across the queenof the land. This discussion is taking place between that queen. Who’sthe queen? The queen is intelligence.

And here she is admitting, the material intelligence, she’sadmitting that she doesn’t know what’s her origin and nor does she knowthe origin of her other associates. Who are the other associates ofintelligence? Mind, the ten senses, then the life air, the five kindsof air which are in the form of a snake, five-hooded snake protectingthe land, protecting the kingdom, protecting the body. All thefunctions of the body is taking place due to the activities of thesefive airs. Prana, apana, samana, vyana and udana. All the functioningof the body starting from respiratory system to evacuation system, allthe functioning nervous system, digestive system, all these areactually being controlled by diffrenet types of air. Prana, apana,samana, vyana and udana. And this snake is very expert in protectingthe city. But eventually we’ll see that how, when Kalayavana, deathpersonified (Yamaraja) attacked, then what happened, everything fellapart. The city of nine gates, this human body was devastated. The fiveairs who were protecting the body so nicely had to succumb to theonslaught of Kalayavana, especially when Kala-kanyavana embracedPuranjana. Kala-kanyavana, the time in the form of a beautiful woman,embraced him. And the result is he became devoid of all his strength.Although Puranjana was very powerful, specially surrounded by all hisassociates, heading with the queen, headed by the queen orintelligence. When Kala-kanya embraced him, he lost all his strength,he was completely helpless and then Kala Yavan raja. Yamaraja and hisassociates.

The spirit soul is now taken away,(i.e.) Puranjana is taken away..anyway that is I don’t want to get into that. The point to thispurport, Kala-kanya, I’m sorry, the queen is admitting that na tevidama I do not know, vayam us / our, samyak kartaramà purusarsabhapurusarsabha  means addressing him (Puranjana) as the best of the humanbeings, purusha rishbha the best of the human beings. atmanas camyself, parasyapi of others. I’m surrounded by my associates, but I donot know where you all came from. And Prabhupada is elaborating on thatpoint that in the material nature everyone is in ignorance of hisorigin, nobody can nobody knows in this material nature about hisorigin (unclear). And that’s why the material nature is known as theplace of ignorance. It has been identified as avidya, it has beenidentified as tamasah, the dark place of darkness, place of ignorance,place of… place of illusion, where everyone is bewildered, all the wayup to Brahma. We can see when Brahma was born, when Brahma appeared,although he directly appeared from the navel of the Supreme Personalityof Godhead, the first created being in the universe, came directly fromthe Supreme Personality of Godhead, and he himself didn’t know where hecame from. He began to wonder, Brahma’s situation was like, he woke upand he found that he is in a strange place and he didn’t have anyrecollection of where he came from, he didn’t have any recollection ofhis past.

As human beings are born in ignorance, they’re, when they’re born,they don’t have any knowledge whatsoever. Even the material knowledge,they have to acquire the knowledge gradually, through their senseperception and experiences. They gradually develop their knowledge, weall have… Like when we are born, we are in total ignorance. But Brahmaat least when he woke, he appeared as if he just woke up in a strangeplace and he did not have any understanding, any recollection of who hewas. He saw himself sitting on a lotus; he saw that the lotus wassituated on the Garbha Ocean.
And nobody was around, it was just him alone, sitting on a lotus, andhe didn’t have any idea who he was, where he came from, and what he wassupposed to do. And because he is Brahma, he could immediately get intoaction, he tried to figure out, “Let me find out. If I find out thestem of this lotus, then probably I’ll know; I’ll get to know where Icame from.”
But in spite of a long, long endeavour, climbing down, he could notfind out what his origin was. And Bhagavatam describes he came veryclose to the navel of the Lord, his origin, but still, he could notunderstand. Why? Because with the material senses we cannot perceivethe spiritual reality. Unless and until our senses are spiritualised,we will not be able to perceive the spiritual reality.

The spiritual reality is not perceivable by our material senses.That is, and that applies even for Brahma. And then Brahma wasinstructed from within by the Lord, within and without also. Fromwithout, the indication, the direction came from the splashing of thewaves on the Garbha Ocean, creating a sound, tapah, tapah, and thewaves splashed against each other.
And that kind of inspired, prachodayat, inspired Brahma from within,“Let me meditate.” So then Brahma meditated, that means he withdrew hissenses, projected them internally and the Lord also very mercifullygave him the Gayatri. Tene brahma hrda adi kavaye, muhyanti yatsurayah: The Lord Himself gave the Gayatri Mantra to him, by playingHis flute.

So Brahma meditated on the Gayatri, and as a result of that, Brahmaachieved his spiritual perfection. Brahma saw the Supreme Personalityof Godhead face to face. Chintamani prakara sadmasu kalpa vriksha: Hesaw the spiritual sky, it’s a beautiful place, made of, the land thereis made of chintamani. It’s a forest, but the trees there arekalpa-vriksha, desire trees. And surabhi abhipalaantam: there are many,many cows; the Lord is tending those cows and all those cows aresurabhi cows.

And there are many, many damsels, who are serving Him. Who are thosedamsels? They are Lakshmi, lakshmi-sahasra sata sambramha sevyamanau.And he saw the Lord, venum kvananta aravavinda dalayataksham,barhavatam samasitam budha sundarangam, kandarpa koti kamaniya visheshashobha. That is how Brahma saw. After he achieved his spiritualperfection, with his spiritualised senses, he saw the SupremePersonality of Godhead, who is playing a flute, with venum kvanantam.

His eyes are aravinda dalayataksham, wide, beautiful as lotuspetals. And His form is so beautiful, that millions of Cupids areenchanted by His beauty. So that is the way to perceive the spiritualreality. Also, Prabhupada explains that how the spiritual reality isperceived in different phases.  Brahmeti paramatmeti, bhagavan itishabdyate: this Bhagavan- realization, Bhagavan perception, is theultimate. The preliminary perception is brahmajyoti. Through jnana, onesees the brahmajyoti. Through jnana, the endeavour of knowledge,through the intellectual endeavour, one can see only the, the bodilyeffulgence, the blinding bodily effulgence of the Supreme Personalityof Godhead.  It blinds one, just like from darkness when one goes tobroad daylight all of a sudden. If a man is in a dark room for many,many days and then all of a sudden he is made to look at the sun, whatwill happen? He’ll just get blinded. So that’s what happens to thejnanis. They just see the light and they become blind, they can’t goany further. But the yogis, by meditating at the core of their heartsthe Supreme Personality of Godhead, see Him as the Supersoul,Paramatmeti. But through devotion, when one develops a lovingrelationship with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, then he sees Himas the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is goloka eva nivasatyakhilatma bhuta, who resides in Goloka Vrindavan.

So one can see the Supreme Personality of Godhead provided hefollows the proper process. And we are very fortunate that ShrilaPrabhupada, that we came across Shrila Prabhupada and his teachings. Wecame across ISKCON, through which, the institution through which ShrilaPrabhupada has presented, made the arrangement for the whole world toreceive this information which is otherwise impossible to have.

The most important criteria, the most important factor for receivingknowledge is a qualified teacher. Just books are not enough.Bhagavad-gita, Shrimad-Bhagavatam, all the scriptures have been there.Many of us even read them many a times, but what was our understanding?Didn’t understand anything. And we realised that when we came acrossShrila Prabhupada.
When we came across Shrila Prabhupada, everything became crystal clear.Many of us grew up with Ramayan and Mahabharat stories, but throughRamayan and Mahabharat, what do we find? What is the destination? Wefind that the sages are performing austerities for thousands of yearsto be elevated to heavenly planets. Mahabharat is not going beyondthat, Ramayan is not going beyond that, just heavenly planets.

Sarbhanga Rishi performed such austerities, Ramachandra came and sawhim, met him. Sarbhanga was waiting for Ramachandra to come and whenRamachandra came, when He was in exile in the forest, then He saw thatthere was a chariot and there was somebody in the chariot and as soonas Ramachandra came, he just disappeared. So Ramachandra asked,pastimes, “Just who that was?” Sarbhanga said, “That was Indra. He cameto take me to the heavenly planet. But I just wanted to wait for sometime because I knew You were coming, so I wanted to have Your darshan.

So apparently you can see that this is the destination that has beendescribed there is just heavenly planet.  Of course within the linesyou can see that in although Mahabharath is not openly admitting thatthe spiritual sky but through Bhagavad Gita that becomes clear.  ” yadgatva na nivartante tad dhama paramam mama” but although we may haveread Mahabharata, although we may have read Bhagavad Gita many timesbut that did not become clear, this understanding was not clear.

But what is that region “na tad bhasayate suryo na sasanko napavakah” where is that region.  We didn’t have any understanding, butwhen we read Prabhupada, Prabhupada pointed out that beyond thismaterial nature there is another reality.  Prabhupada has made thatpoint very very clear that our destination is not higher planetarysystems the brahmanda, this universe is within the material nature andin this universe there are seven higher planetary systems and sevenlower planetary systems. And in the higher planetary systems we canhave superior material comforts, superior material enjoyment, but“ksine punye martya-lokam visanti”. One goes there by acquiring pietyand when the piety is exhausted “martya-lokam visanti” he falls downagain in this material nature, in this world of birth and death, earthplanet, lower region.  In the heavenly planet there is no death assuch, there is no death in heavenly planet but there is considerationof falling down from the heavenly planet as it has been described inBhagavad Gita “ksine punye martya-lokam visanti”.

The same point also has been made in Mahabharath.  One sage, the achariot came from the Swargaloka to take him to the heavenly planet, toSwargaloka.  Then, when he was told that the chariot has come that hehas come to take him there then to Swargaloka, his question was, tellme about Swargaloka, what is so special about going there.  So themessenger who came on behalf of Indra said Swargaloka is, he started todescribe that the Swargaloka is so full of wonderful materialfacilities for enjoyment.  There are beautiful apsaraas and (43:23) attheir beck and call.  There is no old age or disease and there we candrink nectar which gives them unlimited energy, unlimited strength andthere are beautiful flowers, gardens, where the flowers never wither,Parijatha flowers, they don’t wither and in this way he just kept ondescribing the beauty of the heavenly planet.  Then  he said, fine, youtold me about the qualities of heavenly planet, now tell me if there isany disqualification and then he started to describe, yes you see whenthe piety, when one enjoys in the heavenly planet in exchange of thatenjoyment, his piety is deducted.  One enjoys there and piety getsminus, just like you go to some place with money in your pocket and asyou enjoy you have to pay, in the heavenly planet you pay for yourpiety, for your punya.  And when your punya becomes exhausted then allof a sudden he falls down to this earth planet, place of birth anddeath (Mrtyuloka) the place of death.  So after hearing that he said, Idon’t need to go there.  If some day I have to come back again, thenwhat is the point in going there, rather I will go to some place where,from where I will never have to come back again.  So that is, thatshows that he was an intelligent person.

Now like we can consider that we have been very fortunate to havethat information first-hand from Srila Prabhupada.  Srila Prabhupadaactually made it very very clear, that the destination, ultimatedestination is not higher planetary system and Prabhupada verygraphically described it.  It is like in a prison house, you getpromoted into becoming a first class prisoner.  What is the big dealabout becoming a first class prisoner, you are already in the prisonhouse.  First class prisoner, second class prisoner, third classprisoner, fifth class prisoner, you are in a prison.

In the first class prison you may have some facilities but is that adesirable destination?.  No.  So the thing is the goal of life is toget out of this material nature.  Systematically, these points havebeen very, very precisely defined like, through Sankhya philosophy thishas been defined Sankhya analyses the material nature to do (46:37)___consideration goes all the way up to Mahatattva, five elements of thecreation, pancha mahabooth, panchendriya, pancha karmendriya, thenpancha vishaya, five kinds of objects of the senses, twenty, then mind,intelligence, and false ego, then mahatattva.  The whole materialnature has been analyzed.  The Sankhya, the goal of Sankhya is not justto analyze the material nature.  The goal of Sankhya is to transcendthe material nature.  That is what Sankhya is meant.
After twenty four consideration that we may be considering, they areall subjective, I’m sorry.  They are all objective by nature.  But theobject cannot exist without the subject.  So what is the subject?  Thesubject is I.  I am here, that is why the material nature is here.  Soeverything is, all these is dependent upon my existence here.  So I, sowho is that I.  Where does that I comes from.  Obviously the I did notcome from the material nature.  I came from, the soul came from anotherreality.

So the 25th scientific consideration of Sankhya is jivatma and the26th consideration is paramatma or the Supreme Personality of Godhead,and Krishna presents the Sankhya philosophy in a very, very conciseform in Bhagavad Gita.  The same point Krishna is making “bhumir apoanalo vayuh kham mano buddhir eva ca ahankara itiyam me bhinnaprakritir astadha.

“Sankhya philosophy describes, analyzes the twenty fourconsiderations.  Krishna did it only with eight considerations, earth,water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligene and false ego.  “bhinnnaprakritir astadha”.  But then Krishna makes the point.  “apareyam itastv anyam” this nature is inferior.  This material nature consisting ofeight elements, eight objects, eight considerations is “apara”,inferior.  “prakrtim viddhi me param” know it well that there isanother reality beyond this inferior material nature which is mysuperior energy, my superior nature and “jiva-bhutam maha-baho yayedamdharyate jagat”.  The jiva-bhutam, the living entities are coming fromthat superior nature and they are “yayedam dharyate jagat”.  They aresustaining this material nature and they are exploiting this materialnature.

And Prabhupada makes the point even more simply.  Prabhupada ismaking the point that around us we see two types of objects.  One isinert matter and the other is the living being.  In this room we cansee, some objects are inert, like this microphone, this table, thisseat, the floor, the walls, the pillars, they are all made of inferior,rather they are inert matter. But we all, are we inert ? We areliving.  Although the bodies are made of matter, but these bodies areliving bodies.  What causes the bodies to be alive, what causes somebodies to be alive ?  And that is the question.

Prabhupada made that point when he went to M.I.T.in Boston. Theyvery proudly, they showed different departments of the institue, theMassachusets Institute Of Technology. And at the end of the tourPrabhupada asked : “Where is the department that discriminates betweenthe dead body and the living body, studies the difference between thedead body and the living body. That is the subject that Prabhupada cameto teach us. And we are very fortunate that we have been exposed tothose teachings.  This verse, although it is saying that she did notknow where she came for, what was her origin, but actually we can say. We are very fortunate to know, we are very fortunate that we know wherewe came from.  That is Prabhupada’s mercy, that is our good fortune. Weknow where we came from.  We know that the spirit soul came from thespiritual sky.  The spirit soul is a part and parcel of Krishna  Andtherefore as a spirit soul we must develop our relationship withKrishna.  Because the existence of the part is in its.., the perfectionor the utility of the existence of a part lies in its connection withthe whole.

Srila Prabhupada again makes that point very simply.  This littlefinger is a part of my body.  And as a part of this body, this littlefinger is so important. But if the litlle finger is cut off and islying on the floor, will this finger have any value? No. The utility orthe value of the finger lies in its connection with the whole body. When it is a part of this body it is so important, but when it isseperated from the body, it is meaningless, it is useless.

Now the question is, how can a part become connected to the whole ?Here also Prabhupada gives a very wonderful example.  A tree has many,many, innumerable leaves.  But each single leaf is connected to thetree, for what? Because each single leaf is doing something for thesake of the tree. It is transforming the food into energy for the tree,with the rays of the sun, with the medium of the chlorophyl.  Now whenthe leaf stops to serve the tree, what happens?  It falls out of thetree.  So, what is the link ?  What is the criteria that makes a partbecome connected to the whole?  What makes that link ? Service.  So, weare separated from Krishna today, why ?  Because we stopped to serveHim. Now if we want to reestablish our connection with Krishna, then wesimply have to start to serve Him.

If a leaf that has fallen out of the tree somehow or other it canbegin to serve the tree again.  A leaf cannot do that but we can. Thatis our prerogative that we have.  A leaf that has fallen out of thetree cannot become reconnected to the tree. But we, the livingentities, as parts and parcels of Krishna have the prerogative.  It isup to our own volition, up to our own desire, up to our own will.  Ifwe want to serve Krishna we can serve Krishna and by serving Krishna wecan become connected to Krishna.

And this is the advantage of coming accross a right teacher.  Whatdoes a good teacher do ?  The good teacher makes the subject verysimple.  And that’s what Prabhupada did for us.  Allthough we are alldull headed, products of Kali-yuga. But by Prabhupada’s mercy this verycomplex knowledge.  “na te viduh sura-ganah prabhavarca maharsayah”Even the suras, the demi-gods do not understand this topic. Maharsayah,the great sages, they cannot understand this.  But this has been soeasily understood, this has been so easily conceived, simply by SrilaPrabhupada’s mercy.

And now it is up to us how we are going to utilize this knowledge. How we are going to practically apply this knowledge in our own life.Theoretical understanding is important, but theoretical understandingis not everything. The ultimate culmination of knowledge is in itsproper application.  And there comes the sadhana bhakti, we have topractise, that’s why we are all here, practising. And we know that ifwe properly practise this process, some day we will achieve perfection,no doubt about it.  When ? It does not matter.  But let’s keep onpractising. Because when you practise, the process is so wonderful.

Again Prabhupada made another point here.  For us it does not reallymatter whether we are here or in the spiritual sky. Because when wewill go to the spiritual sky, what will you do ?  If we become elevatedto the spiritual sky now, what will we do there ? We will be doingwhatever we are doing now. So what is the difference?  Therefore, for adevotee, he is perfectly situated wherever he is.  But what reallymatters, is the mercy of a pure devotee of the Lord.

All glories to Srila Prabhupada!  Gaura Premanande! Hari Haribol!

Does anyone have any question ? Yes, Devakinandana Prabhu.

[Question Unclear]  Maharaja, I can understand that…In thetranslation this girl says…  I do not know who has begotten me.. And inthe purport Srila Prabhupada says that the living entity is ignorant ofhis origin. Here in this whole thing the living entity is Puranjana andthis girl is the intelligence.. Now Prabhupada says the living entityis ignorant of its origin.

BCS : Well, Prabhupada is actually, although here this particularaspect is the intelligence which will be clear afterwards. ButPrabhupada is taking the condition of the living entity in the materialnature and in the purport he is explaining that. Prabhupada is notreally going into that, the intelligence aspect.. Prabhupada ispointing out that in the material nature nobody…  She actually makesthe point. Me and others.  That others can include not only herassociates… The ‘others’ can also include the living entity..

BCS: Yes, Bhakta Rupa Prabhu

Question : The living entity approaches the intelligence to try tofind out what is his origin and the intelligence comes up with nothing.[Laughter BCS: Yes, that's also..] Is it not that what is going on herein this story? Anyway, my question.  You have very nicely presentedthis description of svarga loka. It seems that svarga loka is a big,big, devious conspiracy to attract those who are able to …

BCS : Those who did not come in contact with a bonafide spiritual master.

Question [continued] These messengers that are coming to take thepeople to svarga loka, do they know that they are part of a conspiracy?  Or are they just…

BCS : No, no, they are also bewildered… For example when Indra seesthat someone is performing great austerities or somebody is performingasvamedha yajna, he becomes concerned, he becomes worried that theperson will come and take over my position.  And he makes all kinds ofdevious arrangements to dissuade the person from doing that. He sendsapsaras or he makes different kinds of… he steals the horses like inthe case of Prithu Maharaja.  So he is also in equally ignorance, Indrain the heavenly planets, he also is in equal ignorance.

Question continued : So, it is not that they are intentionallycheating, thhey are actually doing for their own good, they are justtrying to keep  their own position…,

BCS :  The thought that comes to my mind, as an example, is thatthere are big, big institutes of management.  They are very sincerelyteaching everybody how to be succesful in the material nature, right ?And at the end of the day they don’t really have the information, theydon’t have the knowledge… They are sincerely trying to make peopleelevated to that position, thinking that that is the ultimate goal oflife.  The residents of the heavenly planets are also in a similarsituation. They are thinking that elevation to the heavenly planets isthe ultimate goal of life, because they don’t have proper informationsabout the spiritual reality.

Question continued : Even Indra ?

BCS : You see, Indra is a devotee of some sort.  But he is a karmamisra bhakta, he is not a suddha bhakta, meaning, he is still concernedabout material enjoyment.  He thinks by rendering service to Krishna,by acting as Krishna’s agent or Vishnu’s agent, he is going to have hisdesires  fullfilled. He doesn’t know the fact of ‘anyabhilasita sunyamjnana karmad anavritam’.  He is very much caught up with thekarma-aspect of life.  Thank you.

Question :  Hare Krishna, Maharaja. You said a good teacher presentsthe matter in a very simple way.  So, you presented everything in avery simple way. Thank you for that. [BCS : [Laughter] All glories toSrila Prabhupada]. Maharaja, you said that we are very much fortunate,that at least we know where we have come from, that at least we knowwhere we come from. The question is there now.  People say we come fromthe spiritual sky, from the Vaikuntha and there are a group of devoteeswho will say that we come from the body of Maha-Vishnu.  Thisunderstanding is there that we fell down and again we come back to thebody of Maha-Vishnu, and again fall back and again go to the body ofMahavishnu. That is okay. The original source is the body ofMaha-Vishnu. Still that confusion will be there that where I have comefrom..

My immediate response to that will be, let’s not waste our time. And it is actually Prabhupada’s warning…  Because Prabhupada told usemphatically, don’t waste time… During Prabhupada’s time also there wasthat consideration, not exactly Maha-Vishnu.  Whether the living entitycomes from Krishna Loka or whether the living entity comes from theBrahma Jyoti.  Prabhupada said, “Don’t waste your time”.  Because youwill never be able to undestand where you came from, because our causeof fall down is not in the material nature.  Our cause of our fall downor our origin is not in the material nature, it is in the spiritualsky.  Now again, to go back to Somebody once who was a big proponent ofthat theory that the conditioned souls were never in the spiritual skyand they are originating from the body of Maha-Vishnu.

I just made a simple question to that person.  When a living entitygoes back to Vrindavana, then Who is his origin ? You get the point ?You are saying that the origin of the living entity is Maha-Vishnu.First question. Can somebody go back to Goloka Vrindavana from thissituation ?  And he admitted, yes. When he goes back to GolokaVrindavana, then who is his origin.  Then he himself admitted,Sankarsana, Balarama.  So, it will depend like where we are situated. Now we are in a conditioned state.

Let us deal with this situation, where we are now.  Where we camefrom we won’t be able to find out from this situation.  Let us notconsider where we came from.  Rather let us consider two factors, wherewe are now and where should we go.  Let us utilize our time to dealwith these two things. Specially our present…Like Bhaktivinod Thakur’sstatement in this respect:

Forget the past that sleeps and ne’er
The future dream at all
Live with the times that are with thee
And progress thee shall call

Forget the past that sleeps.  Deal with the time that are with thee,that is with you…Deal with the present.  That is the real progress,that is the real spiritual situation.

Okay, I will stop now, Thank you very much.

All glories to Srila Prabhupada! Gaura Premanande! Hari Haribol!