THEFOLLOWING IS A CLASS GIVEN BY HIS HOLINESS BHAKTI CHARU SWAMI ON SRIMADBHAGAVATAM THIRD CANTO CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE TEXT TWELVE, THE GLORIES OFDEVOTIONAL SERVICE

Transcription : Ranga Radhika Dasi
Editing : Ramananda Raya Dasa

Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya
Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya
Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya

Maitreya uvaca
iti sva-matur niravadyam ipsitam
nisamya pumsam apavarga-vardhanam
dhiyabhinandyatmavatam satam gatir
babhasa isat-smita-sobhitananah

Synonyms
maitreyah uvaca — Maitreya said; iti — thus; sva-matuh — of His mother;niravadyam — uncontaminated; ipsitam — desire; nisamya — after hearing;pumsam — of people; apavarga — cessation of bodily existence; vardhanam— increasing; dhiya — mentally; abhinandya — having thanked; atma-vatam— interested in self-realization; satam — of the transcendentalists;gatih — the path; babhase — He explained; isat — slightly; smita —smiling; sobhita — beautiful; ananah — His face.

Translation by His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada:

Maitreya said: After hearing of His mother’s uncontaminated desirefor transcendental realization, the Lord thanked her within Himself forher questions, and thus, His face smiling, He explained the path of thetranscendentalists, who are interested in self-realization.

Purport by Srila Prabhupada:
Devahuti has surrendered her confession of material entanglement andher desire to gain release. Her questions to Lord Kapila are veryinteresting for persons who are actually trying to get liberation frommaterial entanglement and attain the perfectional stage of human life.Unless one is interested in understanding his spiritual life, or hisconstitutional position, and unless he also feels inconvenience inmaterial existence, his human form of life is spoiled. One who does notcare for these transcendental necessities of life and simply engageslike an animal in eating, sleeping, fearing and mating has spoiled hislife. Lord Kapila was very much satisfied by His mother’s questionsbecause the answers stimulate one’s desire for liberation from theconditional life of material existence. Such questions are calledapavarga-vardhanam. Those who have actual spiritual interest are calledsat, or devotees. Satam prasangat. Sat means “that which eternallyexists,” and asat means “that which is not eternal.” Unless one issituated on the spiritual platform, he is not sat; he is asat. The asatstands on a platform which will not exist, but anyone who stands on thespiritual platform will exist eternally. As spirit soul, everyoneexists eternally, but the asat has accepted the material world as hisshelter, and therefore he is full of anxiety. Asad-grahan, theincompatible situation of the spirit soul who has the false idea ofenjoying matter, is the cause of the soul’s being asat. Actually, thespirit soul is not asat. As soon as one is conscious of this fact andtakes to Krishna consciousness, he becomes sat. Satam gatih, the pathof the eternal, is very interesting to persons who are afterliberation, and His Lordship Kapila began to speak about that path.

[End of Purport]

maitreya uvaca
iti sva-matur niravadyam ipsitam
nisamya pumsam apavarga-vardhanam
dhiyabhinandyatmavatam satam gatir
babhasa isat-smita-sobhitananah

Maitreya said: After hearing of His mother’s uncontaminated desirefor transcendental realization, the Lord thanked her within Himself forher questions, and thus, His face smiling, He explained the path of thetranscendentalists, who are interested in self-realization.

So, this chapter, the twenty fifth chapter of the third Canto isdescribing the glories of devotional service in response to thequestions that Mother Devahuti asked to Kapiladeva, her son. So whatactually happened, His father, Kardama Muni, left home. And Kapiladevahad the responsibility to take care of His mother.

[verses five and six of chapter twenty five]:

When Kardama Muni left for the forest Lord Kapila stayed on thestrand of Bindu Sarovar to please His mother, Devahuti. On the bank ofBindu Sarovar He was residing with His mother. When Kapila, who couldshow her the ultimate goal of the Absolute Truth, was sitting leisurelybefore her,  Devahuti remembered the words of Brahma had spoken to her.And she, therefore began to question Kapila as follows…

What did Brahma tell Kardama Muni and Devahuti? Who remembers? That the Supreme Personality of Godhead will come as their son.

So this is how Devahuti knew that this child is… Her son is actuallythe Supreme Personality of Godhead. And therefore she asked thesequestions. These questions are very important. I will read them.Devahuti said: I am very sick of the disturbance caused by my materialsenses [SB 3.25.7]. So this is the sign of wisdom; to feel sick aboutthe disturbances caused by material senses. What is the material sensescausing? Kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya. What is thematerial senses causing? Gradually Krishna described that in BhagavadGita. Dhyayato visayan pumsah sangas tesu pajayate [Bg 2.62]. Visayanmeans objects of the senses. The senses are running constantly towardsthe objects of the senses.

Like a man sees a beautiful woman. Thus his eyes runs after thebeauty of a woman’s form. And he thinks that I must have her. He wantsto enjoy her, kama. Dhyayato visayan pumsah. And as a result of that,senses running after the objects of the senses, senses’ entanglementwith the objects of the senses, sangas tesu pajayate sangat sanjayatekamah, lust is developed. What is lust? I must enjoy this woman, sexdesire. But then he expected so much out of his sense gratification,kamat krodho bhijayate; when the lust is not fulfilled, when he doesn’tget what he wanted, then he becomes angry. Krodho bhijayate. And inthis way, krodhad bhavati sammohah [Bg 2.63]. Kama, krodha, lobha.Lobha, he develops a greed. And then, moha, sammohah, krodhad bhavatosammohah sammohat smriti vibhramah. He loses his memory. When he isbewildered, when he is completely baffled, he doesn’t know what to do,he loses his memory. And smriti-bhramsad buddhi-nasho; as a result ofthe loss of his memory his intelligence is lost, buddhi nashat.Buddhi-nasho and buddhi nashat pranashyati.

So Devahuti put it in such a beautiful way actually, that I am sickof this disturbance caused by my senses. Normally what happens? Theysuccumb to their senses, but Devahuti is saying that she has becomesick of this onslaught of the senses. So that is the sign ofintelligence. When one sees what our senses are doing by running afterthe objects of the senses, this is a disturbance! And once you’re sickabout it, that why is it happening?! Why can’t I overcome this?!  Ifyou are sick do you want to remain sick? When you are sick you want tobecome cured of your sickness. So this cure for sickness is availableand that’s what she is asking. She realizes that it is her sickness andnow she wants to have remedy from that sickness.

I am very sick of the disturbance caused by my material senses, forbecause of this sense disturbance, my Lord, I have fallen into theabyss of ignorance [SB 3.25.7]. I have fallen into this deep, dark wellof ignorance. So we can see what a wise lady she was. How many of usactually think that we are disturbed by the senses? Rather we think,oh, let’s go for it! General tendency is to go for sense gratification.Nobody in the material nature generally aspires for, or recognizes thatit is a disturbance and he feels sick about it. The person who feelssick about it he is actually wise.

And if we consider then we can see that at some point we did becomesick, that’s why we came to Krishna Consciousness. If we didn’t feelthat sickness we wouldn’t have joined ISKCON. At some point we did feelthat, well, this is not what we want. This is simply causingdisturbance. In course of time we may forget it, but actually thepurpose of our coming to ISKCON, purpose of our coming to KrishnaConsciousness IS this sickness, feeling of sickness.

I remember when I was in Mayapura, that was in 1976, one Australianboy came and joined. We were happy that this boy joined, veryintelligent, very nice boy. But then, after some time, one Australiangirl came to ISKCON Mayapura. She wanted to join. And then, I wastaking care of this boy and he told me the story that she was hisgirlfriend and she [he] became sick of her. And that’s why he left andcame to ISKCON and now somehow she found out and she came. Like, thisis how Maya works. One becomes sick and eventually what happened?Although he wanted to, but finally the girl took him away. So one hasto be strong enough.

The devotees’ association actually gives us that strength. Devoteesmake one realize that this is Maya. Like, Maya comes with her beautifulform and what does Maya say? Maya says, come and enjoy me! Come andenjoy me! But is there any enjoyment? There is no enjoyment. There isonly bleeding, loss of blood, loss of energy, loss of vitality.Material enjoyment we pay a price, big price. The price is the price ofblood.

Prabhupada gave the example of a camel’s eating the thorn. The cameleats the thorn, camel loves to eat thorns. Sometimes we see that. Likethere are, from Rajasthan, they bring those camels and ships, hundredsof camels. And they just walk and I was noticing that once those camelscame and opposite to our temple there are a lot of Babul trees, full ofthorns. There are other trees also, but the camels are not going forthat. They are just going for the thorns [laughs]! The thorny trees.And Prabhupada gave the example, why a camel does that. Camel eats thethorn, because when he eats the thorn it’s stung and his palate becomesshredded. The thorn actually cuts the tongue and palate. And as aresult of that blood comes out. And the camel actually tastes theblood. And camel thinks, oh, how delicious the thorn is!

So material nature is like that. Sense gratification is like that.Like a camel is eating the thorn and tasting his own blood and he isthinking, oh how delicious! How relishable this material enjoyment is!Especially sex desire. So it is the real wisdom when one recognizes thecondition of the material nature, and what is the condition of thematerial nature? Material nature is suffering! When we become sick, dowe enjoy? Does anybody say that I am sick and I am enjoying? [laughs]Does anybody say that? Because sickness leads to suffering, sickness issuffering. Healthy condition is enjoyment, but sickness is sufferingcondition.

So when one realizes that this ‘bhava roga’, this materialisticdisease is causing us suffering, causing us pain, then he will try toget out of this material condition. And that is what Devahuti is sayinghere: for because of the sense disturbance, my Lord, I have fallen intothe abyss of ignorance. Your Lordship is my only means of getting outof this darkest region of ignorance because You are my transcendentaleye, which, by Your mercy only, I have attained after many, many births[SB 3.25.7-8]. So here she is saying that her eyes are Kapiladeva’seyes, the Lord’s eyes. “You are my transcendental eye, which, by Yourmercy only, I have attained after many, many births.”

So, how do we have to see things? With our own eyes, or withKrishna’s eyes? Krishna’s eyes means Krishna’s instructions. Krishna’sinstructions means shastra. Krishna’s instructions means Bhagavad Gita.When we read Bhagavad Gita then what do we get to hear? What we get tosee? It gives a real understanding. Dehino’smin yatha dehe kaumaramyauvanam jara [Bg 2.13]. We get to know that we are not this body. Weare spirit souls.

So this is the way to see. Shastra caksusa, so the eyes of thescriptures. And eyes of the scriptures here has been described as eyesof Krishna, because scriptures are the instructions of Krishna. When wefollow the scriptures then we see through Krishna’s instruction.Krishna said, sarva dharman parityaja mama ekam sharanam vraja [Bg 18.66]. We couldn’t come to this conclusion ourselves, but Krishna toldus, you do this. Krishna told us, that you are not your body. We didn’tknow. We didn’t have any means to understand that we are not this body.Until we came to ISKCON, how many of us knew that we are not this body?Like a parrot we may have repeated that.

I remember, I was in one ashrama and this lady guru, very famouslady, she used to always speak about that she is not the body, but Inever had that understanding what she actually meant. And following herI also wanted to repeat that I am not this body, but I didn’t have anyunderstanding of what it meant. But then when I came to SrilaPrabhupada’s teachings, THEN it became clear. I am not this [body]because I am the spirit soul!  So without the information of the spiritsoul we cannot have the understanding that we are not this body. Theunderstanding of our not being the body will come only when we realizethat we’re the spirit soul. So those knowledges, they’re actuallyrepeating some half baked understanding. Anyway, I feel that I amfortunate that I came to Srila Prabhupada’s shelter and as a result ofgetting Prabhupada’s shelter we got to know the real spiritualunderstanding. We got to know Krishna’s message!

Before coming to ISKCON I met many sadhus, many big, big gurus, butnot a single one ever pointed out that Krishna is the SupremePersonality of Godhead. Not a single one. But Prabhupada, what didPrabhupada say? Prabhupada didn’t take any credit for himself.Prabhupada simply gave the credit to Krishna. So this is our goodfortune. We came to the right place. After traveling for so many years,searching for spiritual master, what do we find? We find that all thesepeople are just cheating. They don’t know themselves what they aretalking about. Anyway, it’s just that lots of thoughts are coming backabout those experiences, but anyway, the important line is that we arevery fortunate.

This is what we have to understand, that we are very fortunate thatwe came to ISKCON. Do you realize that? Are you feeling fortunate thatyou are in ISKCON? So take advantage of your good fortune. You havecome to the right place. Here you’ll get the right understanding. Andyou follow the path and you will see the result. Those who areintelligent they’ll go for the right thing.

I’ll tell you also another thing. Like, sometimes we want to getsomething cheaply. But when we get something cheap then we get cheated.We don’t get the right stuff. Like, it happened once that we boughtsomething and the person who bought, actually we gave the sample, andwe even gave the address of where that will be available, but thatperson went to some other place where he bargained. I mean, he wasbargaining and he went to the place where he got the cheapest. And theresult is, those items we couldn’t use. They were so bad that we had toreject them. So we shouldn’t go for cheap things. We must understandthat the good thing, the right thing will have the right value, rightprice.

Like, if you go to buy diamond, can you get it at the price ofplastic? If you want diamond then you have to pay the price fordiamond. Don’t expect to get diamond at the price of plastic. So herein ISKCON you have to pay the price. This price you don’t have to payanywhere else. And if you can pay the price you’ll get the commodity.What is the price? The price is following the four regulativeprinciples. If you want spiritual life you have to pay the price. Nomeat eating, no intoxication, no illicit sex, no gambling. But thereare people, so-called gurus, they’re saying, come to me and I will giveyou moksha, liberation from this material bondage. And you can doanything. You can eat meat. You can drink alcohol. You can have illicitsex. No problem.

Now, will it work? From the scriptures we see that it never works.If we want to follow spiritual path we have to follow these rules. Youcannot make spiritual advancement eating non-vegetarian food. Youcannot make spiritual advancement while drinking alcohol. You cannothave spiritual life while having illicit sex. So if you want spirituallife you have to give up these sinful activities. And not only illicitsex, to make advancement in spiritual life one has to give up sexdesire all together.

Restriction from illicit sex is the beginning, but then againPrabhupada gives the definition of what is illicit sex? Any sex lifethat is without the purpose of procreation is illicit sex. So that isthe life of a brahmachari. Prabhupada said even a householder in ISKCONis a brahmachari. A person who indulges in sex life only for theprocreation is a brahmachari. And Krishna is saying dharma aviruddhakamo’smi bharatarsabha [Bg 7.11]. Dharma aviruddha kama means sex lifeonly for the sake of procreation. That is Krishna.

So this is the price we have to pay, and that is the only price wehave to pay! And, of course, chanting the Hare Krishna Mahamantra. Wedon’t have to pay any money. We don’t have to perform any austerity. Wedon’t have to do anything. We don’t have to perform yajna. We don’thave to perform anything else! Just follow the four regulativeprinciples and chant Hare Krishna.

In one hand it’s a very difficult process, but on the other hand itis a very simple process. Like,  you’re going to buy diamond, but theshopkeeper says that, okay, you can buy it. You don’t have to pay anyprice. You won’t have to pay any price only that you have to give upmeat eating [laughs], you have to give up intoxication, you have togive up illicit sex and you have to give up gambling. And you chantHare Krishna, then what to speak of diamond, I’ll give you something-that’s what Prabhupada is saying- I’ll give you something that is soprecious that you put all the wealth of this world and you put and thiswill be even more precious than that. All the wealth of this world willnot compare to this commodity or this gift. So that is the good fortunethat we have. In one hand it’s so simple, but we simply have to followthe four regulative principles.

Sometimes there is a controversy. Like, it comes up, is why recentlythis thing came up that Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura did not saythat sex life is only for the procreation, even between husband andwife. And it’s a common sense. Even the animals don’t indulge in sexlife other than the purpose of procreation. So what to speak of humanbeing?! What to speak of a person who is aspiring for spiritual life?Does it have to be in writing? Isn’t it common sense? Does an animalindulge in sex life other than procreation? So what to speak of humanbeing? Or should the human being become lower than the animals? It hasbecome, human beings have become lower than the animals! The way humanbeings behave, if the animal gets to know, he’ll feel embarrassed!

So this is the sign of intelligence and this is [audio recording discontinued].