Lectures Transcribed

The Ten Offences, Day 2, Durban, South Africa

The Ten Offences, Day 2, Durban, South Africa

The universes looked like they were going to bounce of his head and just be lost. That would have been a problem, but they were trying to restrain them but they couldn’t restrain them. He was just so overwhelmed in ecstasy. But fortunately, the universes didn’t get lost. Anyway, then the next chapter, is about the “Prayers of Madhai”. “The prayers of Madhai”, Madhai, Jagai and Madhai, they got love of God, and everything was forgiven but, and they were simply chanting and dancing in ecstasy, going everywhere with Lord Caitanya. But they would from time to time, they would remember, that “wow, what we did!”, “what we did!” and particularly Madhai, who was the actual one who attacked Lord Nityananda, he would remember, “what I did!” and it would become too much and he would just collapse, just crying and lamenting and it came to such a point that he was constantly in this state, just constantly crying and lamenting, that “I attacked Lord Nityananda, what sort of demon, what sort of demon am I”.
So then one day, he met Lord Nityananda and he appealed to him for forgiveness, he had already done that, but you know again like more deeply. So there are some prayers then, Madhai’s prayers and I thought I could just read them and there is a benediction.

Let me just see. Oh yes okay.

Lord Nityananda says, those are just to encourage you to stay awake. Is anyone asleep, if you’re asleep? Yes. Put your hand up, if you are asleep, so this is to encourage you to stay awake.
He says, Lord Nityananda says, that “anyone who hears your wonderful and devotional prayers to me will certainly develop loving attachment to My lotus feet.” (CB Madhya 15)
Okay, that is the benediction from Lord Nityananda and its, in other words, it’s true, so if you hear nicely, Madhai’s prayers then according to Lord Nityananda, you’ll develop loving attachment to His lotus feet. Is that okay? Is that alright? Good. So let’s listen then “Madhai’s prayers”. It’s not so long; it just takes 2 or 3 minutes.

“Oh Lord, the whole cosmic manifestation is resting on your chest, your body is very soft and gives Krsna great pleasure when You expand yourself as His bed” (CB, Madhya 15) as Ananta Sesa “and He lies on You but I am so monstrous and sinful that I have hurt the same transcendental body of Yours, who is more wretched than I am?” (CB, Madhya 15)
“Your transcendental form is constantly worshiped by Lord Shiva accompanied by his beautiful consort Parvati and other young maidens. Simply by remembering Your form, one is freed from all bondage and the same spiritual body was bleeding due to my misdeeds.
“Citraketu, the famous emperor, was living happily by worshiping You and was counted amongst the foremost Vaisnava devotees. That same form that is worshiped by the entire universe was brutally hit by me, the lowest of sinners.”
“The sages of Naimisaranaya forest headed by Saunaka became freed from all material entanglement by meditating upon Your form. In Your expansion as Laksmana, You were wounded by Indrajit, the son of Ravana, and for this You killed him. Similarly, the gorilla demon, Dvivida, also met with a premature death at Your hands because he was harassing You.”
“The mighty Jarasandha was also vanquished by You for being inimical to You. I am so foolish that I did not understand what is beneficial for me and so I inflicted pain upon Your transcendental form. I do not know then the consequences of such an act, when Rukmi, Krsna’s brother-in-law, simply insulted You, You took his life.”
“Romaharsana Suta was blessed with a long life by the sages of Naimisaranaya, but when he failed to give You proper respect, You slew him. So what do I deserve?” (CB, Madhya 15)
“King Duryodhana and his entire dynasty was almost exterminated just for disobeying Your words. They were spared by good fortune because of the presence of elevated devotees like Kunti, Bhisma, Yudhisthira, and Arjuna.”
“When one’s very life is at stake just by a little disrespectful attitude towards You,” (CB, Madhya 15). Like Romaharsana Suta, he just wouldn’t stand up, that’s all, that’s all, he did he just wouldn’t stand up when Lord Balarama attended the assembly and Rukmi, he just insulted Lord Balarama. “What sort of ksatriya are You? You should be out there herding your cows, that’s more suitable for You.” So just some silly little insult, and they lost their lives.
So “when one’s very life is at stake just by a little disrespectful attitude towards You, then to what depths of depravity and hellishness must I enter for my heinous act?” Speaking like this, Madhai fell to the ground clutching the Lord’s lotus feet to his heart.
Madhai continued to pray, “The shelter of These lotus feet can save anyone from the endless cycle of rebirth. You have appeared simply to deliver the most fallen, so my dear Lord, kindly protect this fallen soul surrendered to You, for You are my life and soul and most treasured goal.” (CB, Madhya 15)
Oh, it’s this one? Yes! Oh okay.
“All glories to Lord Nityananda, You are the most precious jewel of all the Vaisnava devotees. You are completely free from anger, always submerged in the highest state of blissfulness. You are always inclined to forgive those who are surrendered to You. I am the most atrocious beast and offender, so kindly forgive me Lord for all my offences.” (CB, Madhya 15)

Now, I read that, among other things, there’s the benediction. Did you listen carefully to that? Did any of you fall asleep? No? I hope not, because if you listen carefully you get this benediction of attaining loving attachment to Lord Nityananda’s feet but I also read that because another part, concluding part of this discussion about offending Vaisnavas, blaspheming Vaisnavas, is what to do if you do it.
Ya, what you do if you do it, is you do like this, something like this. Ya, you have to humbly, Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura actually describes very nicely what you should do.
“If by chance you happen to commit this offence you should be repentant recognising your own low nature and having committed this offence, in the same way that a person has been burned by fire seeks relief in fire, one should nullify the offence by lamenting, resolving to come before the Vaisnava, fall at his feet and satisfy him by offering obeisances, praises and respect.
If the Vaisnava is not satisfied you should remain ready to comply with his every wish”, (Madhurya-Kadambini 3, Third Shower of Nectar, Blaspheming a saintly person is deadly) become his personal servant actually. “If the offence is so great that the Vaisnavas anger does not die then in great remorse thinking yourself most unfortunate and bound for hell because of your offence, you should give up everything else and take shelter in continuous nama-sankirtan. By the great power of nama kirtan certainly in time you will be delivered from your offence.

But if you, reluctant to put yourself in a humble position by offering repeated respects and service to the Vaisnava that you have offended, if you justify yourself by arguing that simply taking shelter of the name is sufficient for the deliverance from this offence then you become guilty of further offence”. (Madhurya-Kadambini 3, Third Shower of Nectar, Blaspheming a saintly person is deadly)
So you can see how Madhai, so nicely prayed to Lord Nityananda. So we have to be able to feel it like that, we have to become sensitive in our Krishna Consciousness to these things. It’s very, very important, not to be callous and sort of, you know, the don’t care type of attitude, so it’s very very important this mood of repentance and regret and then if you happen to be offended then of course a good attitude is that even if someone comes up to you and tells you something really horrible that you are, you know a dot, dot, dot, dot, exclamation mark, (laughter) star, (laughter) further exclamation mark and various other sort of expletive symbols (laughter). In other words, they really tell it to you as if they may think it is, but how should you respond? Well if you think that you are the most fallen or at least you know fairly well situated in that group then, you might well consider actually this person is criticising me, for being you know a lousy devotee, and you know, you are not serious and all these, something like that, you could think that well this devotee is practically praising me. They don’t, they don’t even know how rotten I am. They are telling me I am a lousy devotee but I am not a devotee actually, so they are being too merciful to me.
So Lord Nityananda’s reply is very nice, as a type of example, of course He is speaking in His own mood, He is the Supreme Lord but it is also a nice example of the type of mood one should have if one feels offended somehow if it happens.

“Lord Nityananda smiled, hearing the loving prayers offered to Him and said, “Get up, arise O Madhai, you are My servitor, I now reside within your body. Is the father disturbed if his little child hits him? I have accepted your beating in this parental mood. What is more important is that anyone who hears your wonderful devotional prayers to Me will certainly develop loving attachment to My lotus feet.” (CB, Madhya 15)
So this is very nice.

“You are the recipient of my Lord’s mercy, therefore you are free from all blame. Whoever worships My Lord Caitanya becomes most dear to Me, and I offer him My protection eternally.
If anyone disregards Lord Caitanya, but worships Me and sings My glories he will suffer pain, birth after birth. Lord Nityananda then embraced Madhai and took away all his misery.” (CB, Madhya 15)
So it’s just a brief part of it actually, there’s a lot more to it. But just see how nice Lord Nityananda’s mood is, He is not thinking you know in that, haughty, arrogant type of way, that “how dare you offend such a person as Me. I have so many good qualities and you said I am a nonsense, what on earth are you?” Not like that.

Last thing I will mention as far as blaspheming Vaisnavas is concerned, is about the story of Brghu Muni and mainly, well its interesting in a number of ways, mainly it’s interesting, anyway we will tell you about it when we get there. He is a person who decided to do an experiment, to do with offences. He decided to commit offences to test people and see how they reacted to being offended. To get more of an understanding of where those people were at and the people he choose to offend were first of all, Lord Brahma, then Lord Shiva, then Lord Vishnu, so he was really taking a chance (laughter). They are the wrong people to offend, anyone is the wrong person, but they are really the wrong people, because there was a debate about who is the most pure Lord Brahma, Lord Shiva or Lord Vishnu. So he said I will go find out so his plan was to offend them and see how they reacted.

So first of all, he went and offended his father. Lord Brahma, the head of our sampradaya, ya who happens to be his father and he offended him in a certain way, it was a mental offence. We mentioned yesterday that there is mental, verbal, vocal…mental, vocal and bodily offences. So he went to see his father Lord Brahma, and Lord Brahma came forward to great him and the traditional method when you meet your parents is you bow down. Do you bow down when you meet your parents in the morning? Do you? You don’t? Oh, neither did Brghu Muni (laughter) and you know what his father was going to do; his father was going to kill him for this disrespect. Yes.

When Brahmananda, have you heard of Brahmananda, one of the oldest devotees, first went home to see his mother after having becoming a devotee and shaved his head, all that sort of thing. He asked Prabhupada “what should I do”? Prabhupada said, “first thing is you bow down and touch her feet, so he did that, so she being a New York mataji, (laughter) she didn’t know what to make of that at all. She just became too astonished, but anyway, this is the traditional process, and Lord Brahma was going to kill him for not doing it, but His wife, Saraswati said “no he is your son, forgive him and it’s just a mistake”, so he forgave him.
So then he went off to see his brother, Lord Shiva, and when Lord Shiva approached him very affectionately to embrace him out of brotherly affection, Brghu Muni jumped back and said “don’t you touch me, look at you, you are filthy! Look at you, you got ashes of dead cremated bodies all over your body, its filthy and look, you got that snake around your neck, horrible creature, ha get away, don’t come near me and you associate with all these hobgoblins, and people like that. Pooh! You just stay away.” (laughter) So Lord Shiva was extremely offended, took up his trident to kill his brother but Paravati intervened and said, “he’s your brother, you know he got a little carried away, give him a chance”, so he was saved.

It’s a very dangerous business offending people like that. So, first of all it was mental, Lord Brahma, now it was verbal, he expressed some certain offensive words to his brother Shiva.
So then he went on to, Lord Vishnu. You know what he did? There was Lord Vishnu reclining on Ananta-Sesa and there was Laxmi devi massaging Lord Vishnu’s lotus feet and Lord Vishnu is lying there. So Brghu Muni just walked in and walked right up to Him and kicked Him in the chest, (Shjo) kicked Him and naturally Lord Vishnu, you know He just was shocked. He got up, and do you know what He did? Did He call His Sudharsana chakra, Narayana-jvarathe, ultimate cold weapon, curse him, call on Jaya and Vijaya? No! He said “Oh my dear Brghu Muni, my dear brahmana sage, I am so sorry to have got in your way (laughter). I hope you didn’t hurt your lotus foot on my soft chest… ah my hard chest. I am so sorry but actually I consider myself so fortunate that you have done this, your lotus foot has touched my chest so now all the goddesses of fortune now never leave me because the dust from your feet is now on my chest, so I am so fortunate. Thank you very much.”

That’s a pretty wonderful type of response but this is generally the mood, as devotees we are very sensitive to avoid offending other devotees, but if apparently we become offended or something happens like that, it may look like that, that we should try and have this sort of attitude, very important, not that yes you offended me, you know in a sense of you know you feel that you offended me, she or he offended me and they did something wrong and bad and something should be done about it. These types of thoughts, what it indicates, is that we have a rather inflated view of ourselves, we think that “Me! Look at me! I am important! Oh I am a very important person and if someone offends me then automatically they have done something very bad, something wrong. It’s wrong because I am so good and if you offend someone who is good and that is wrong! These people, they are wrong so that means I am very good, isn’t it? I am so good”, but that’s not our idea. Our idea is:

trnad api sunicena
taror api sahisnuna
amanina manadena
kirtaniya sada hari

That “One should chant the holy names of the Lord in a humble state of mind, thinking oneself lower than the straw in the street; one should be more tolerant than a tree, devoid of all sense of false prestige, and be ready to offer all respect to others. In such a state of mind one can chant the holy names of the Lord constantly.” (Sri Sri Sikshastaka 3)

Unless one is in that state of mind, one will not be able to chant the holy names of the Lord constantly, and one will get into maya, sometimes at least. Ya. One should be very humble, lower than the straw in the street, the straw in the street, you can’t get any lower. People are walking on the straw in the street all the time, and what does the straw in the street doing? Is it getting up and saying you know “how dare you!” No its simply taking that and more tolerant than a tree that people, the tree, is standing there for a long time, it’s hot, it’s cold, it’s wet, different times of the year, the tree is just standing there and finally in many cases, finally the people come along and cut the tree down and while they are in the process of cutting the tree, they may pick some fruit from the tree to give themselves energy so that they can cut the tree more nicely and while they are cutting the tree, the tree may, the tree will be giving them shade so that they can cut the tree in comfort. So this is what it means to be tolerant than a tree. How tolerant is that? Ya and at the same time not only that, always ready to offer all respects to others. Not just tolerant you know, putting up with a lot, but at the same time ready to offer all respects to others, “in this state of mind one can chant the holy names of the Lord constantly” (Sri Sri Sikshastaka 3) and in, and in no other, in no other state of mind can one chant the names constantly.

So in our test we want you to be able to give a couple of examples of real “maha aparadhis” and a little realisation, just like a one sentence realisation, about two. Is that okay? That is basically what we want to discuss about the first offence. I think we will take a little break now, and we’ll come back 10 or 15 minutes and talk about the next offence or couple of offences.

Srila Prabhupada ki Jai!

(Break)(end of recording)

“The second offence against the holy name is:
(2) To consider demigods as being independent of the Supreme Lord’s control or equal to Him.”

(beginning of recording)
I’ve heard about it and I don’t expect that if any of you really have a problem with it, worshipping demigods, anyway we hope not, sometimes people do sometimes, I mean certainly in that transitional period for Hindu people, when they go from being Hindu people to being devotees, then the, this question will certainly arise, that we, as far as we understand all of you are basically, you know, firmly situated as devotees so we don’t, in other words we don’t really expect this offence to occur so much or to be as much of a danger as some of the others like as particularly offending Vaisnavas that’s really something very relevant and touchy. But here than in our over view book, we have given some explanation.

First of all we have quoted from the Nectar of Devotion which explains, which is taken straight out, actually of the Nectar of Devotion. There are 5 qualities; well there are first of all 55 qualities which Lord Shiva and Lord Brahma have in common with Krsna and Lord Narayana, Krsna and his immediate expansions, 55. Then there is another 5, as we have stated here which Lord Shiva and Lord Brahma what to speak of any of the other demigods, they are the biggest demigods. So even Lord Shiva and Lord Brahma, they don’t have, they don’t have inconceivable potency, they don’t have uncountable universes coming from their bodies, they are not the original source of any incarnations, they don’t give salvation, they can’t give salvation, they don’t even have it themselves necessarily, so they can’t give salvation to enemies they kill and they don’t, generally attract liberated souls. Generally they are not liberated themselves or at least they kind of working on being liberated, they are certainly not permanently liberated like Krsna.

Now we turn, are these lights on up here over you ladies? You seem to be more in darkness than you were (laughter). We are meant to be enlightening you, what’s going on? (laughter) I don’t know what happened there but who turned the lights off. Is it darker? “Yes!” it is darker? Strange, anyway I don’t know. Our man was playing around with things over there I hope he hasn’t blown anything up.

Okay, so Lord Narayan, He has these qualities and all the other incarnations, expansions and so on Vaikunta deities, They all have these extra 5 qualities, very practical things, you know, inconceivable potency, universes coming from Their bodies, at least They have that potential. They are the source of incarnations. They can give salvation and They can attract liberated souls because They are permanently liberated. They are uncontaminatable. They cannot fall down even if They want to, so, but then even beyond that Krsna Himself, Krsna specifically has 4 more which no one else has although Lord Balarama does. So He performs wonderful varieties of pastimes specially His childhood pastimes, don’t make a mistake about this His childhood pastimes business. It means His Vrndavana pastimes. Ya. It includes all the pastimes in Vrndavana. It’s not just when He was a little baby with Mother Yasoda, Ya, it’s not just that, it’s all His childhood, boyhood and youthful pastimes before He goes to Mathura and becomes like a prince. So, they are so wonderful, those pastimes are so amazing, that even the pastimes of other forms of the Lord cannot compare. Then He is surrounded by devotees, endowed with wonderful love of God, of course all the Narayana forms, They are also surrounded by devotees, who have a degree of love of God which remain… (end of recording)

(beginning of recording) Lord Narayan, when the gopis were looking for Krsna one time during one of the pastimes. Lord Narayana watching everything felt sorry for them, so He came down and hid two of His arms behind His back and started playing the flute but the gopis were not fooled. Even Lord Narayana couldn’t play a flute like Krsna and His beauty is so amazing that He, even Lord Narayan cannot compare.
Anyway these things, we know and then the next section here is there are two parts, two places in Bhagavad Gita where Krsna really addresses this subject just like full frontal attack. Chapter 7, verses 21-23, Chapter 9, verses 23-25. So Krsna makes it really clear, “Those whose intelligence has been stolen by material desires surrender unto demigods, and follow the particular rules and regulations of worship according to their own natures” (BG 7.20) and so on. Anyway you probably know these verses but if you are, if you are having to preach to people, who are interested in demigod worship, but they are also devotees or could become devotees, then just make a note that these are the places in Bhagavad Gita where Krsna addresses demigod worship, Chapter 7, Chapter 9 and these verses and at the end we say how to relate to demigods, how to relate to demigod worship.

So before we get into that, let us draw your attention to this work of art we have here. Yes, we will shortly sell the board (laughter) for a lot of money but anyway there it is. Lord Shiva and Lord Brahma, this is what the offence mentions because they are the biggest and of the two, Lord Shiva is the biggest. So when Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura discusses this offence, he talks about being particularly careful about Lord Shiva because Lord Shiva, he says there are two categories of living entities, that we know, there is isvara, the vishnu-tattva, basically the isvara category and the jiva category, we are in the jiva category and so is Lord Brahma. He is one of us, in fact not only that, but we have all been Lord Brahma. Did you know that? You, Mataji, have been Lord Brahma! What do you think about that? Prabhupada says this very clearly in one purport in the 9th Canto, that when the living entity enters the material world to start off with, the first birth is as a Lord Brahma. So we have all been and the current Lord Brahma in this universe is a jiva, jiva soul like us and in every universe all the Lord Brahma’s are jiva souls but not Lord Shiva, not Lord Shiva. His position is different; His position is He is part of the isvara category along with Lord Vishnu. Yes, He is part of that category but at the same time we don’t really consider Him exactly to be part of that group. He occupies ultimately we would say, ultimately He occupies his own position.

So here we’ve drawn this little diagram, it’s from Brahma Samhita, I mean the concepts are from Brahma Samhita and I don’t know how familiar you are with Brahma Samhita, or if when you read it you understood much but from verses, verse 7 and 8, 9 and 10, they discuss what we are seeing here and also for that matter verse 13, we have include something from that.

We have Maha-Vishnu on the left. We have in between, you see there’s these red ah…little dashes, these red lines and at the top there, it says Sambhu, so that is the glance of Maha-Vishnu and on the right hand side we have pradhana, or in other words the material nature, when it’s in a state of soup, you could say. All the ingredients are there but all mixed up and you cannot tell what is what, just like if you have a soup, yesterday someone made a soup for me and you look at it and you couldn’t see, there were green, little bits and pieces, you know you couldn’t see, here is some peas yes this is a pea soup or some potato or cauliflower. It was all mixed up. So of course initially you have the peas and the cauliflower and the potato and all the different things individually situated but then they mix them all up when they made the soup. So pradhana means the material nature, when all the elements are there everything is there. The modes are there, the 5 gross elements, earth, water, fire, air, ether and the 3 subtle elements and the senses are there, the sense objects are there, the active senses are there, the knowledge acquiring senses are there. It’s all there but you can’t see any of it for what you know, anything is in terms of its own particular position. It’s all mixed up like a soup, you could say.

Anyway Maha-Vishnu glances, that glance, normally if I glance like here I am, I am now glancing to Nrsimhananda Prabhu and now at Aritya-Rsi and Kusum Sarovara, so now I am glancing but there is no form to that glance, in other words there is no contact between us in a literal sense. In the case of Maha-Vishnu, His glance has a type of a form and that is called Sambhu and that glance makes contact with the pradhana and actually, a particular part or aspect of the pradhana which is called the adhara shakti. Krsna is known as Giridhari, dhara means carrier, carrier so the adhara shakti means that part of material nature which carries, it’s like the womb. The womb of the mother which carries the impregnation from the, from the male and then the birth process goes on, so the glance goes like that.

Now in the glance, you will see the living entities are there and beneath it says the kama shakti is there, kama of course means time. Krsna says “kalo ‘smi loka-ksaya-kat”, “I am time, I am time” so the kala shakti is there and the kama shakti embodies, this is now getting slightly more technical. It embodies two particular functions, there are two particular aspects to it, not actually to it but it carries two functions. The function of the Lord’s desire and the function of activity, ya and the jivas and the kama shakti, they are sent within the glance. They are separate from the glance, they are within it but they are not actually the glance but they are elements sort of going down the line of the glance. They are sent by the arrangement of Ramadevi, who is the goddess of fortune and the wife of Maha-Vishnu. She is who, He is consorting with He is in yoga-nidra, you’ve heard of yoga-nidra? Yoga nidra, n-i-d-r-a. Maha-Vishnu is always asleep, right you heard about that? He is always sleeping. Ya. That sleep is called yoga nidra. He is enjoying his pleasure potency. The Lord in all His forms always has His pleasure potency with him right? Radha- Krsna, Sita- Rama, Laxmi-Narayana. In this case Maha-Vishnu is enjoying His association with Ramadevi who is a form of Radharani or Laxmi internally. Not, she is not external to Him as Radharani is external to Krsna, in a sense. She is within Him, because after all she is His pleasure potency, that means she is a part of Him, part of his nature but in this case instead of like Radharani is outside of Krsna, Ramadevi is within Maha-Vishnu and They are enjoying pastimes together, while He is in this state of yoga nidra, sleep, I mean mystic sleep. It’s not sleep, its mystic sleep. So anyway by her arrangement, the jivas are thrown out into the material nature, through down the highway, so to speak of the glance which has a form, which is like a halo, it is glowing. There is like this glow, that is going between Maha-Vishnu and the pradhana and of course the pradhana means maya, Durga. Durga is an expansion of Ramadevi. Are you getting all of this? Yes. Did you already know all this; anyway we don’t want to lose anyone too much.

So, to illustrate the principles involved, we have given this little explanation here which actually is quite good, comes from Tamal Krishna Goswami. Maha-Vishnu, this is the example of the electrical process. Maha-Vishnu is the power house, Sambhu, the glance is like the wire, Ramadevi who is, you know, it’s her potency that the jivas are going, and that the kama shakti is going, these are all going under her so she is like the electricity and pradhana or the material nature, maya, maya, Durga is the electrified object, Ya. So, Sambhu! Who is Sambhu? He is Shiva, he is Lord Shiva and he is the glance and what is the glance, the glance is Maha-Vishnu’s glance. You cannot separate that glance from Maha-Vishnu, that is intrinsically part of Maha-Vishnu’s own person, but that glance, that part of Maha-Vishnu that glance called Sambhu, then impregnates maya, the material nature and by that contact with maya becomes influenced by maya, and so achieves a position which is not purely spiritual like Maha-Vishnu’s position. You get the idea?

So therefore in Brahma-Samhita, Lord Brahma gives another example, gives an example to illustrate, I mean, we have given our electricity example here to give just some idea, but in terms of Sambhu, or Lord Shiva and the position He attains through his contact with Durga, the material nature. This is, Lord Brahma says it’s like milk which has contacted a souring agent and becomes transformed from milk into yogurt. Ya. So milk and yogurt, they are the same thing, milk and yogurt, they are the same thing. They are not two different things altogether like you know, a motor car and an apple, or something like that, they are just totally different. Milk and yogurt they are very intrinsically linked but at the same time, you can make milk from yogurt but you can’t make, what did I say, you can make yogurt from milk but you can’t make milk from yogurt. Yogurt is fixed, in that position, soured, yogurt is sour, it is milk that has become soured. So Lord Shiva, Sambhu, who is the glance of Maha-Vishnu, through contact with Durga becomes soured and becomes influenced by the material nature and is permanently situated as such. Therefore even though in one sense you cannot make a between Lord Shiva, Sambhu and Maha-Vishnu, but actually you have to make a distinction.

Ya, so this is the idea and Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura, He goes to some lengths to talk about this. We should, we should be careful as devotees, how we talk about Lord Shiva. Don’t underestimate him, I know sometimes people complain to us that, “why do you criticise the demigods?” Have you ever heard that? Ya, we don’t criticise the demigods, we may criticise the process of mundane worship of the demigods, but the demigods are very respectable and particularly Lord Shiva is very special. He is a form of Vishnu. He is part of the personal nature of Lord Vishnu but he has attained a very special position, due to contact with Durga, who is his wife. So here we have, the Brahma Samhita goes on to make the point that this is like the prototype, this is actually, the prototype form of the reproductive process as we know it in this material world. The male and female combination and that the living entity being placed in the female in the womb ah… by dint into the male and Lord Brahma goes on to say in the Brahma Samhita that this principle illustrated here is reflected here in every single living entity in the material world. They are all reflections of this and the thing is what happens, the souring process when Sambhu that form of Lord Shiva contacts maya, Durga in the form of injecting the living entities, sexual reproduction like that, so through the contact of the two, the first thing that is produced is called perverted consciousness, material consciousness and Lord Shiva, he is affected by that perverted consciousness, material consciousness.

So anyway I just thought I’d put that up here just for the sake of interest, so you would have some, little perhaps clearer understanding on the position of Lord Shiva. Is that okay? You follow that?

Any comments or questions?

Devotee: Devotee: You explained that Lord Shiva is higher than Lord Brahma. In the case of creation we see that Lord Vishnu appears first, Lord Brahma then appears, Shiva comes later…

Bhakti Caitanya Swami: Oh okay, that is a good question. Yes. In, in the Bhagavatam, it is clearly described Lord Vishnu enters, I mean Garbhodakshayee Vishnu particularly enters each universe, from His navel comes a lotus, from the lotus comes Lord Brahma and then little later Lord Shiva comes from the forehead, from the mind actually of Lord Brahma. So now the thing is that there are different forms of Lord Shiva and actually just while we are at it, I just noticed one thing I didn’t mention all the universes right, see all the universes they’re on their way, they come out of the pores of the body of Maha-Vishnu. They also go into the adhara shakti into the womb that particular part of material nature a little later after the living entities have been implanted and become activated, then the universes come and then all the elements are placed in the universes and the universes expand and then Garbhodakshayee Vishnu enters.

So anyway, the different forms of Lord Shiva, this is, this is one of the original forms, Prabhupada if you read Caitanya Caritamrta, the chapter about describing Advaita Acarya, Prabhupada talks about Sada Shiva. There is a form of Lord Shiva who has a Vaikunta planet and he is, in Vaikunta, he is known as Sada Shiva. He is the original form of Shiva and he is present also in the form of within Maha-Vishnu and then when Maha- Vishnu glances then that Sada Shiva is making contact there, then He, Sada Shiva, He becomes the husband of Durga but not the Durga within our universe. He becomes the husband of Durga, who is the presiding deity of entire material nature and then they both expand into each universe and become the Shiva and Paravati, Shiva and Durga or Shiva and Sati, there are different forms within each universe on Mount Kailash. Ya, so there are expansions from the original Shiva and the original Durga. There is also an original Brahma and he is called Hiranyagarba, anyway we don’t want to go into the intricacies of Brahma Samhita here necessarily, but there are original demigods and they expand into each universe. There is an original fire demigod, yeah there’s a number, there are several original demigods and they are presiding over their particular functions in the whole material nature. They then expand into each universe.

So the Lord Shiva, who comes from the mind of Lord Brahma, when Lord Brahma gets angry with the 4 Kumaras, he is expanded from Sambhu. Ya, he is expanded from Sambhu and even sometimes if the living entity becomes particularly powerful, he can become a shakyaavesa avatara of Lord Shiva, there are such cases. Ya, where Lord Shiva, within the universe is a jiva like us, actually Lord Shiva mentions that in the 4th Canto of the Bhagavatam in his song, there is the chapter called “Singing the song of Lord Shiva” He mentions if you, I forget the exact details, but something like if you perform your varnashram duties then if you are a brahmana and you perform your duties perfectly for a hundred lifetimes then you become Lord Brahma and if you go on further and do more, you can become Lord Shiva, so it is possible for jivas to become Lord Shiva, I mean in the sense of being shakayaavesa. Otherwise this is the position of Shiva here. In principle this is how we should understand Shiva, that He is part and parcel of Maha-Vishnu, He is His glance and a person’s glance is part of their being but he has had contact with Durga and because of that contact, he has become soured. Ya, so that is Lord Shiva. On one hand we shouldn’t underestimate Lord Shiva and we shouldn’t you know speak against him. On the other hand, we have to understand that he is permanently situated like that and that’s how we take him, like yogurt in relation to milk.

Any other comments or questions?


Srila Prabhupada ki Jai!


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