Devotee (2): Śrīla Prabhupāda, when it is cited in the scriptures that Lord Brahmā rides on a swan, a haṁsa, is this…, are we to take this to mean it is a real swan, or is it something symbolic?
Prabhupāda: Not symbolic, it is fact. Why do you say symbolic?
Devotee (2): It’s rather unusual.
Prabhupāda: Unusual… What experience you have got? You have no experience. Have you got any experience of other planetary system, what is there? Then? Your experience is very teeny. So you should not calculate Brahmā’s life and other things by your teeny experience. Now, in the Bhagavad-gītā it is said that the duration of life of Brahmā, sahasra-yuga-paryantam ahar yad brahmaṇo viduḥ… [Bg. 8.17].
Now, Brahmā’s life, it is stated in the śāstras. We have already explained that we accept the authoritative statement of śāstra. Now, Brahmā’s life is stated there. Arhat means his one day is equal to our four yugas. Four yugas means 4,300,000 years, and multiply it by one thousand, sahasra-yuga-paryantam. Sahasra means one thousand. And yuga, yuga means the 4,300,000 years makes a yuga. And multiply it by one thousand = that period is Brahmā’s one day. Similarly, he has got one night. Similarly, he has got one month. Similarly, he has got one year. And such hundred years he will live. So how you can calculate? How it is within your experience? You will think something mysterious. No. Your experience is nothing. Therefore you have to take experience from the perfect person, Kṛṣṇa. Then your knowledge is perfect. That I have already said. Don’t try to understand with your teeny experience everything. Then you will be failure.
Pamho agtacbsp, Dr frog already blooped long time ago and any speculananda sarasvati already made his coffin, we don’t know nothing we just chant HKMM and that’s everything for whoever is not spiritually blind.AGTACBSP YS HARIBOL
……Therefore Yamarāja is recommending that by our fruitive activities we are implicated in so many sinful reaction of life, so saṅkīrtanaṁ bhagavato guṇa-karma-nāmnām. Not only the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra is called saṅkīrtana of the holy name of the Lord, but here it is said, guṇa-karma-nāmnām. Saṅkīrtanaṁ bhagavato guṇa-karma-nāmnām.
Not that when you read Kṛṣṇa, the book which is full of Kṛṣṇa’s activities… That is also saṅkīrtana. That is also saṅkīrtana. Saṅkīrtana does not mean simply chanting the holy name of Kṛṣṇa. Saṅkīrtanameans you discuss Kṛṣṇa’s activities, that is also saṅkīrtana. That is not different from saṅkīrtana.
It is clearly stated here that bhagavato guṇa-karma-nāmnām. Nāma means name, and guṇa means quality and karma means activities. That is not ordinary karma. Just like when we read Kṛṣṇa book, Kṛṣṇa is killing so many demons, He is kidnapping somebody, He is… So many things. It appears just like ordinary, I mean to say, malpractices in the material world. It appears like that.
“So what is this God? He is killing so many persons, He is kidnapping some woman. What is this God?” they may say. But they do not know that that is also transcendental. That is as pure as chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa mantra. It is as pure as. Otherwise, what interest we have got to read Bhagavad-gītā? It is in the battlefield. Senayor ubhayor madhye [Bg.1.21]. Combination of two parties, soldiers, and they are fighting, they are killing.
Therefore those who are sahajiyās, they simply go to the pastimes of Lord Kṛṣṇa with the gopīs. Other things, “Oh, no, no. That is not Kṛṣṇa’s pastime. That is not Kṛṣṇa’s pastime.” That is, they differentiate the absolute activities of the Absolute. That is called sahajiyā. The sahajiyās will never read Bhagavad-gītā, will never read. Because they have been elevated to the mellows of conjugal love.
Therefore they have no interest in Bhagavad-gītā. They say. Or when you discuss Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam on the philosophical point, janmādy asya yataḥ [SB 1.1.1], they also do not attend. If you discuss on the philosophy of Upaniṣad and Vedānta, they’ll not attend.
I have seen it. In Rādhā-kuṇḍa, sometimes in 1934, my Guru Mahārāja was living, and he was discussing Upaniṣad. He was discussing Upaniṣad regularly. And the bābājīs—there are many bābājīs in Rādhā-kuṇḍa—first of all they came, that “Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākura has come, such a learned scholar and the establisher of Gauḍīya Maṭha.”
So out of curiosity they came. And when they saw that he was discussing Upaniṣad, gradually they stopped coming. So my Guru Mahārāja recommended that “These people are not living in Rādhā-kuṇḍa. They are living in Nāraka-kuṇḍa.” I have heard it personally.
So those persons distinguish. Just like Bhīṣma. Bhīṣma is stated here as one of the authority, mahājana. But what did he do? He fought against Kṛṣṇa and pierced with his arrows. You know, in the… We have stated in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Kṛṣṇa became so much disturbed that… Not disturbed; that is also another… He’s pleased. He became pleased, rather. Being pierced by the arrows of Bhīṣma, He became pleased. That I have described in my translation.
So being pleased, He came before him. He came before him as if angry, but not… He was so pleased, that “You wanted to break My promise. I have broken it! Please save Arjuna; that is My request to you.’ ” He promised that “Now tomorrow I shall fight in such a way that either Kṛṣṇa has to break His promise, either…, or His most intimate friend, beloved friend, Arjuna, will be killed.”
So this person is determining to kill Kṛṣṇa’s friend, most intimate friend, and he’s a mahājana. Just try to understand. Bhīṣma is accepted here as mahājana, as authority. And what was his business? He wanted to kill Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna. Just try to understand.
Therefore, we have to follow only the instruction of mahājana; otherwise, we’ll be bewildered. Vaiṣṇave kriyā mudrā vijñeha nā bujhaya [Cc. Madhya 23.39]. We cannot understand what are the activities of Kṛṣṇa and His devotees. We have to simply follow their instruction. That’s all. The sahajiyās, they do not follow the instruction. They imitate only: “Kṛṣṇa has made rāsa-līlā; so why not we also make rāsa-līlā?” It is going on, regularly.
So etāvatālam agha-nirharaṇāya puṁsāṁ saṅkīrtanam [SB 6.3.24]. If you actually want to become free from the contamination of this material world, then you should always be engaged in chanting, saṅkīrtanam. Not only the holy name, but reading the Kṛṣṇa book, The Nectar of Devotion, Teachings of Lord Caitanya.
If you feel tired chanting, you read these books. Sometimes there is psychology, transfer. You are reading some book, you want to read another book. So we have got so many books. If you feel tired this book, then transfer your attention to another book, or another book, or chant. Find out. Simply, not to waste a single moment.
Kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ [Cc. Ādi 17.31]. Caitanya Mahāprabhu says sadā. Sadā means always. So we have got materials for engaging ourself always in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Not that we have got only this one item. No. We have got so many items. That is also accepted.
śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ
smaraṇaṁ pāda-sevanam
arcanaṁ vandanaṁ dāsyaṁ
sakhyam ātma-nivedanam
[SB 7.5.23]
In whatever activities you are engaged… My Guru Mahārāja condemns the…
duṣṭa mana! tumi kisera vaiṣṇava?
pratiṣṭhāra tare, nirjanera ghare,
tava hari-nāma kevala kaitava
[Duṣṭa-Mana 1]
[“My dear mind, what kind of devotee are you? Simply for cheap adoration you sit in a solitary place and pretend to chant the Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra, but this is all cheating.”]
He says that in a corner, in a secluded place, you are chanting is a cheating process for cheap adoration. Why? Because he knows that those who are neophytes, if they imitate the chanting, they simply waste their time. Therefore, he should be engaged in other activities, because he has got the power at the present moment, karma.
Karma means activities. This whole world is full of activities. Therefore this karma should be changed into bhakti, in devotional service. He…, one must be engaged in that… It appears like karma, but it is not karma; it is bhakti. Here also… Just like Kṛṣṇa is doing something. That is not karma; that is transcendental. Similarly, a devotee in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, for service of Kṛṣṇa, if he is engaged which looks superficially as karma, that is not karma; that is bhakti.
The sahajiyās, they do not know it. They think that “We shall sit in a secluded place and chant, imitating Haridāsa.” We have seen it. Their imitation is useless. They fall down. Therefore they must be always engaged in some activities. Otherwise, he’ll be attracted by the modes of ignorance and passion.
Etāvatālam agha-nirharaṇāya. Agha means the reaction of sinful activities. Every one of us, anyone who is in this material world, he is sinful. Without being sinful, nobody is here in this material world. If he’s not sinful, then he’ll be immediately transferred. Yeṣām anta-gataṁ pāpaṁ janānāṁ puṇya-karmaṇām [Bg. 7.28]. Immediately transferred to the spiritual world. He has…
Just like a person who has finished his criminal punishment, immediately he is released from the prison. Similarly, a person who is freed from the resultant action of sinful activities, he immediately becomes liberated. Therefore anyone who is in this material world engaged in fruitive activities… Not the devotees. That is another mistake. The devotees are also here, but they are always in Vaikuṇṭha. Brahma-bhūyāya kalpate [Bg. 14.26].
So anyway, the general process is that instead of, I mean to say, following the religious rituals for diminishing or getting out of the sinful reaction, one is recommended to accept bhakti-yoga, beginning with the chanting of the holy name of Kṛṣṇa. That is the conclusion.
Thank you very much. Hare Kṛṣṇa. [end]
https://prabhupadavani.org/transcriptions/śrīmad-bhāgavatam-632023/