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Panna kala Narasimha 

Mangal Giri

 

spoken at Panna kala Narasimha Kshetra, Mangal Giri, by His Holiness Radhanath Swami

This Deity was established by Yudhistir Maharaj. It was during the twelve years that he was banished to the forest. He lost his kingdom, he lost all of his power, wealth and influence, he had to live in the forest, but because of that wonderful experience that he had, meeting these difficult challenges that he built so many beautiful temples. This is one of them. It was explained that when the Pandavas were living here in this very holy place, Mangalagiri that Sri Yudhistir Maharaj had a dream. The dream was that Lord Narasimha dev appeared to him and told him that you should carve a deity made out of one solid Shaligramshila. So Yudhistir Maharaj had this beautiful diety that we just worshipped a few minutes ago, carved out of a Shaligramshila, and then he installed the diety and Bhima accepted this deity as his istadeva when he was here. He personally worshipped the form of Lakshmi-Narasimha each and every day with great great devotion.

So this is another example, how out of a difficult reversal, such a wonderful benediction was received and offered to the whole world. The deity on the top of the hill that was visited this morning, He also appeared due to a very very difficult situation in the lives of the devotees. There was a rakshasha, his name was Namuchi. He was the son of Kashyapa and Deiti, very powerful materialistic person. The nature of the materialistic person is they want to get more and more power and control to increase and preserve their realm of enjoyment. Namuchi performed tapasya. This story is from the Brahma Vaivarta Purana. It is said that he took a needle, the head of the needle is very sharp. He placed a mustard seed on top of the pointed edge of the needle. Then he stood on that, tremendous balancing. You have to have such control of your minds and senses to be able to do that, if you do something anywhere you would fall from the mustard seed on the head of a needle. And he was a big demon too!! He stood there for thousands of years, practically holding his breath, obviously he could not eat anything or drink anything. By doing this he obliged Lord Brahma, who is a demi-god to come and give him a benediction. This is the difference between Vishnu and the demigods. The demigods, even upto Brahma and Shiva, if you perform the proper payment, or tapasya for them, they are obliged to come and give you whatever you want. But Vishnu is independent, you can perform all tapasyas and He can do just the opposite of everything you want. Vishnu will do whatever is best for your spiritual life. He is Hari. You can perform so much tapasya to get so much nice things and He can come and take it all away, whatever is best. That is why you won’t find in the scriptures where any real, intelligent demons ever worshipped Vishnu. Because they don’t trust Him. So Lord Brahma, in his Vaishnav side he gives love of God, he is the founder of a great sampradaya. But in the role of a demigod, he has to do all these other things, it is occupational duty, on the order of Krishna.

So Brahma appeared to him, not very happily. What do you want? Namuchi, he was so clever. He wanted to create a situation by which he could enjoy without any impediments. What is the greatest impediment in life? Death. Because at the time of death, everything you give your life to achieve is taken away. Your making money, your raising family, but we know at the back of our mind that some day we have to die and it is all going to be taken away. And the more you have, the more it hurts. So people are very fearful of death, so fearful that they want to block it out of their mind, they don’t like to think about it, they like to forget the inevitable. Or else they come into an illusory state where that will happen a long time from now. But still I have so many years to enjoy. But in this world, years pass like seconds. Before too long, you will see, death will be moments away and in this day and age of Kaliyuga, death doesn’t mean being a hundred years old and old does not mean being a hundred years old. Old means being close to death and no one can even gurantee that we have even seven minutes to live. So an expert materialistic person, is someone who really covers his bases as far as possible to protect his sense gratification.

So Namuchi was very intelligent. He asked Brahma for a benediction that I will not die, I will not be killed by anything that is either wet or dry. Now everything is either wet or dry. Atleast that is what he thought. Namuchi was so intelligent in the way he did everything that everyone had to just run for their lives and just give everything he wanted. This one person, he attracted so many others, out of either fear of out of bribery to come and join him and he and his armies terrorised not only this earth planet but the entire universe. There was no peace of mind anywhere, so the devatas, they all went running to Brahma, you gave him the benediction. Brahma said there is nothing I can do, there is only one person who can save us: Krishna, Lord Vishnu. So they all went to the ocean of milk and Indra, Chandra, Vayu, they were all praying and praying to Lord Vishnu to save that this Namuchi is creating havoc in our lives, please save us. Now Vishnu has to honour the benediction of his devotees. But Krishna is more intelligent than anyone, specially in His form of Lord Narasimhadev, He is very intelligent. To kill the demons without violating the benedictions that Brahma or Shiva gives. This is a special feature of Lord Narasimhadev. Lord Narasingadev or Lord Vishnu, He said, I will take care of this demon. He said Indra, I will give you special shakti, go and fight with him. So Indra was fighting, he had this weapon of Lord Vishnu and Namuchi was becoming very much fatigued. Infact it is said that Vishnu gave Indra a weapon made out of foam which was neither wet nor die. So Namuchi ran away and he came to a mountain cave and just when he came into the mountain cave, Lord Narasimhadev was waiting for him, very impatiently.

He was ferociously angry, anger that can be never understood, except if you were there at that time. Because everything that exists in this entire creation is just a reflection of Krishna’s opulences, maybe a perverted reflection or it may be a tiny reflection. So you know that we all have anger. Usually our anger is not very transcendental. dhayate vishayan pumshan …………….kama krodhabijayate. Krishna says in the gita, contemplating the objects of the senses, one develops attachment for them, from such attachment lust develops, from lust, when it is unfulfilled, anger arises. Krodha bhavati sammoha, sammohat smritir vibhrame. From anger arises delusion, from delusion, bewilderment of memory, memory is bewildered, intelligence is lost and when intelligence is lost, one falls down again into the pool of material existence. So we know how difficult it is to control anger, even at our loved ones. Sometimes a mother for her child or a father for his child, child for its parents, godbrother for his godbrother, godsister for a godsister, sometimes we are angry with ourselves, very difficult to control anger. Srila Prabhupada explains, when you become angry, your eyes become red and you start breathing hard, you start getting sensations in your chest, and you just, God knows what you do! Regretful things! But what is that anger? It’s origin is Krishna – sarva karana karanam. He is the cause of all causes. So when Krishna manifests the supreme source, the embodiment of all anger, whatever anger you have is only an infinitesimal part and parcel of Narasimhadev’s anger in a perverted reflection. But His anger is completely pure, it is totally under His control. And His anger is for those who offend His devotees.

Narasimhadev was angry, He was breathing fire, He was so angry. Hare Krishna! when Namuchi saw this form of Narasimhadev, he understood he was facing death personified. Lord Narasimhadev took His chakra which was covered with foam from the sea. Foam is neither wet nor dry. Who would have thought of such a transcendental way of killing this demon? You all know foam, you can’t say it is wet, you can hold it in your hand and flow it around, so it is not wet. But at the same time, it is not dry, its is foam! So his sudarshan chakra manifested in the form of foam and sliced of the head of Namuchi. Sri Narasimhadev Bhagavan ki jai! Protects His devotees. But then He was roaring in anger on this mountain. The demigods, Brahma, Narada muni and others, they wanted to pacify Lord Narasimhadev. They were praying, please Lord be peaceful. We cannot tolerate this anger. So Lord Narasimhadev said I will be pacified if you offer me nectar, amrita. So the devotees headed by the devatas, they prepared nectarean amrita from the celestail worlds. And Narasimhadev Bhagavan, He explained to them however much quantity you offer Me, I will drink half of it. The other half will be Mahaprasad. So they made these offerings. Then Lord Narasimhadev just to please His devotees by being always there to accept their love and devotion, He directly manifested Himself into the deity that we saw this morning on the top of this mountain.He manifested Himself right out of the mountain Himself in a Svayambhu moorti.

He explained to them, throughout the satyayuga, you give me this nectar. However in Treta yuga, it will be very, very difficult to get nectar from the heavenly planets. So you should give Me Ghee from the cows, and however much you bring Me, I will drink it. Bring me 10000 kilos, I will drink 5000 and the other 5000 will be your Mahaprasad. Bring me 1 litre, I will drink half litre and the other half litre will be your Mahaprasad. The Lord makes a certain signal right when there is half done and the pujari understand that signal. Sometimes, it is in a little sound, ah-ar-ah-ar. But sometimes, He goes ah-ar-ah-ar and then He stops. Then in any case the pujari understands. In the dvapara yuga, the Lord explained that you should offer Me pure milk from the cow. But as kaliyuga progresses, the common man will not even be able to afford milk. So you mix jaggery and water. There is a special mix of jaggery, pure water, black pepper and cardamom. And that mixture is very carefully prepared by the priests and then it is offered to the Lord. The local name for jaggery is panna. So therefore the name for this deity in kaliyuga is Panna kala Narasimhadev. And by making these offerings and taking the sacred remnants of His mercy, we become purified. We receive His transcendental mercy.

Namuchi as expert as he was, was foiled by Krishna. Krishna explains in the Gita, mayadhyakshena prakriti suyate sa caracaram hetu nanena Kaunteya jagat viparivartate. That this material nature is working under My direction. This material nature, Krishna explains is eternally fallible. In other words, everything that is in this material nature is fallible. It is all conquering. Through material nature, Krishna will humble everyone. Krishna will strip all your opulences and your pride away from you as He did to Namuchi.

Therefore we really have two choices in this world – whether the Lord will appear before us as He did for Namuchi or Hiranyakashipu or whether the Lord will appear before us as He did for Prahlada Maharaj or Narada Muni. Those are your two choices. As you approach Krishna, He will reveal Himself accordingly. Try to cheat Krishna, He will cheat you. Try to worship Krishna and He will be conquered by that devotion. Yashodamai, she never stood on any needles, she was a mother. But she could bind Krishna with a rope and He was crying, mother! Mother! please forgive Me. The gopis of Vrindavan they bound Krishna so much by their love, that even when He was living in Dwarka, He was weeping and crying all night, practically every night in separation due to being conquered by their love. But even the greatest asuras are easily destroyed by Krishna. So do we want to conquer Krishna by our love or be conquered by Krishna due to our envy, pride? That is our choice.

That beautiful temple on top of Mangalagiri above, for those of you who went up there is the deity of Mangala Lakshmi. She is also a self manifested deity of Lakshmidevi, who appeared at the same time as Panna kala Narasimhadev. And the devotees understand that the Lord, in order to receive His mercy as the Supreme Father, we must very carefully approach through the ??. In Vrindavan also, in order to approach Krishna we first must receive the mercy of Sri Radharani. And in order to receive the mercy of Sri Radharani, we must receive the mercy of her devotees because they are more dear to her than her very life. The whole process of bhakti is the process of being subordinate to love. Krishna is subordinate to the love of Sri Radharani. Therefore when Srimati Radharani says, bring this person back to your abode, Krishna has to do it. He is conquered by her every request. And Sri Radharani is conquered by the love of her every devotee. Because they are doing so much to facilitate her service to Krishna that she is conquered by the love of her servants.

Therefore if the servants of the Lord approach Sri Radharani tha please rescue this person, she cannot refuse. Therefore Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu taught us what is the safest and highest type of worship – gopi bhartur padakamalayor das das dasanudas. To be the servant of the servant of the servant of the servant of the Lord. Because the more we go down in this disciplic succession of servitude, the more we are connecting to that whole process of love conquering the object of love. And there is factually no other means of approaching the Supreme Absolute truth directly except through the process of becoming the servant of the servant of the servant of the servant.

In the Satyayuga, this Mangalagiri hill was known as Sripadri. The reason is in Satyayuga, there were few demons. We read about them because when somebody was a demon, they were really demons. Because people had so much shakti in Satyayuga, we read about Hiranyaksha, Hiranyakashipu, Namuchi, but there were very few. The sinful people had to go to hell. Yamaraja didn’t have a very difficult service in Satyayuga. He had quite a bit of spare time. But what he would do was that, at one time Yamaraja, the few people that were in hell, he brought them all to Mangalagiri which was then called Sripadri. He then had them all offering prayers to Lord Narasimhadev and they all got liberated from their sins. Sri Yamaraja ki jai!

In the Treta yuga, it was known as Mukhyadri. It is explained that when Lord Ramachandra brought everyone that was living in Ayodhya back to Vaikuntha, even Lakshman and Sita and all the other great souls entered into the gates of Vaikuntha to His abode. But those people from Ayodhya who were sinful, Jai and Vijay said you cannot comme in here yet. But if you go to this mountain and worship Narasimhadev, very quickly you will be free from all your sins and by the mercy of Lord Ramachandra and Narasimhadev, you can come back. So they were all sent back.

In the age of Dvaparayuga, it is called Dharmadri. People in that age, the recommended dharma is performance of sacrifice. But some people performed sacrifices with some material desires, so they are elevated to Svargaloka. We read in Bhagavad Gita that if you have accumulation of very, very pious activities, you go to Svarga loka, you enjoy. But as you are enjoying it is like an internal invisible meter where are all your pious activities are gradually being checked out. We may not be able to see the meter but it is all happening. And when it comes down, just like you put gasoline or petrol in your automobile and you think, now I have a full tank, I can go anywhere. But every inch that you move, you look at your meter of your gas tank, it is going less and less and less and less. And eventually it is empty, you run out of petrol. Have any of you run out of petrol before? That is what happens in the heavenly planets. You run out of your good karma and you fall back down to the earth. And you fall again and again and again and again, so these people up and down and up and down, they pray to Indra. What should we do, we are tired of all this up and down and up and down, it is not worth it. Indra said you go and worship Lord Narasimhadev here, on the banks of the Krishna river and if you worship Him with great devotion, then you will not again have to come down, you will go back home, back to Godhead.