Date: March 15, 2005
Verse: Srimad Bhagavatam 1.13.19
Speaker: HG Dravida Das Brahmacari
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pratikriya na yasyeha
kutascit karhicit prabho
sa esa bhagavan kalah
sarvesam nah samagatah

TRANSLATION: This frightful situation cannot be remedied by any person in this material world. My lord, it is the Supreme Personality of Godhead as eternal time [kala] that has approached us all.

PURPORT: There is no superior power which can check the cruel hands of death. No one wants to die, however acute the source of bodily sufferings may be. Even in the days of so-called scientific advancement of knowledge, there is no remedial measure either for old age or for death. Old age is the notice of the arrival of death served by cruel time, and no one can refuse to accept either summon calls or the supreme judgment of eternal time. This is explained before Dhrtarastra because he might ask Vidura to find out some remedial measure for the imminent fearful situation, as he had ordered many times before. Before ordering, however, Vidura informed Dhrtarastra that there was no remedial measure by anyone or from any source in this material world. And because there is no such thing in the material world, death is identical with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, as it is said by the Lord Himself in the Bhagavad-gita (10.34).

Death cannot be checked by anyone or from any source within this material world. Hiranyakasipu wanted to be immortal and underwent a severe type of penance by which the whole universe trembled, and Brahma himself approached him to dissuade Hiranyakasipu from such a severe type of penance.

Hiranyakasipu asked Brahma to award him the blessings of immortality, but Brahma said that he himself was subject to death, even in the topmost planet, so how could he award him the benediction of immortality? So there is death even in the topmost planet of this universe, and what to speak of other planets, which are far, far inferior in quality to Brahmaloka, the residing planet of Brahma. Wherever there is the influence of eternal time, there is this set of tribulations, namely birth, disease, old age and death, and all of them are invincible.

(mangalacarana)

So before I begin I’d like to simply beg the indulgence of all my senior Vaisnavas and Vaisnavas who are here. I’m very arrogant to sit on this big seat, but they asked me to do so, so please forgive me. It’s very nice to be back here in Mayapur Dham after too long an absence.

I’ll try to speak something on this subject here of Vidura’s instructions to Dhrtarastra. In reviewing this chapter I came to the preliminary conclusion that the theme here is time, is the kala. Kala appears in this chapter 19 times. And I’d like to read just a little bit of the surrounding information that we’re getting from Vidura, this inevitable and invincible force of time.

We heard two verses back: “Insurmountable, eternal time imperceptibly overcomes those who are too much attached to family affairs and are always engrossed in their thought.”

And then later on this chapter we’ll read in text 46:

“This gross material body made of five elements is already under the control of eternal time [kala], action [karma] and the modes of material nature [guna]. How, then, can it, being already in the jaws of the serpent, protect others?”

This is Vidura’s statement, and the previous statement was introductory. And in his purport to text 46 Srila Prabhupada summarises the whole them of this
chapter:

“Above the modes of nature is eternal time, which is called kala because it changes the shape of everything in the material world. Even if we are able to do something temporarily beneficial, time will see that the good project is frustrated in course of time. The only thing possible to be done is to get rid of eternal time, kala, [repeats this] which is compared to kala-sarpa, or the cobra snake, whose bite is always lethal. No one can be saved from the bite of a cobra. The best remedy for getting out of the clutches of the cobralike kala or its integrity, the modes of nature, is bhakti-yoga, as it is recommended in the Bhagavad-gita (14.26).”

And of course that’s:

mam ca yo ‘vyabhicarena bhakti-yogena sevate sa gunan samatityaitan brahma-bhuyaya kalpate

One who engages in full devotional service, unfailing in all circumstances, at once transcends the modes of material nature and thus comes to the level of Brahman, or beyond time.

(continues purport of 46) “The highest perfectional project of philanthropic activities is to engage everyone in the act of preaching bhakti-yoga all over the world because that alone can save the people from the control of maya, or the material nature represented by kala, karma and guna, as described above.”

So it is Vidura’s mercy that he has come back to the home. As it’s described earlier, sannyasis generally don’t come back to the home that they left, but he’s doing so simply to show his mercy to Dhrtarastra. Dhrtarastra is deeply in the meshes, in the grip of this kala-sarpa, this snake of time, yet because of the power of illusion, he refuses to see his inevitable end, which is death. He’ll have to be kicked out of that home anyway by death, he’s going to be ripped out. And yet even though his liver is defective, his teeth are loose, he’s old, he’s lost all the kingdom, he’s being humiliated by having to take remnants of the food of Bhima, who killed all of his sons-still, he’s relaxing at home, enjoying the full position of a king, being honoured by Yudhisthira, who’s very devoutly serving him as an elder.
There’s no fault in his part.

But in that comfortable position, Dhrtarastra is forgetting the atma-tattva, he’s blind to that. And this theme is right there at the beginning of the Bhagavatam. King Pariksit, being a Vaisnava, as soon as he was cursed by Srngi, he immediately gave up his kingdom, he gave up all his comforts, he took off his godly dress–he accepted it as a blessing rather than a curse, and he sat down on the bank of the Ganges to hear the Bhagavatam from Sukadeva.

Dhrtarastra needs to be pushed. He’s not a Vaisnava; he’s offended the devotees, especially the Pandavas, by indulging his son Duryodhana in all of his nefarious plans to kill the Pandavas, to usurp the kingdom, culminating in this horrific war of Kuruksetra in which there was practically mass annihilation except for the Pandavas and their grandson, Pariksit, who was the heir to the kingdom. So Dhrtarastra is not about to jump up and start chanting Hare Krsna. He will be able to practice this astanga-yoga and eventually annihilate his body, and it’s mentioned later that he attained liberation.

But Pariksit shows by contrast how a Vaisnava reacts to the coming of inevitable time in the form of a curse in the case of Pariksit. Now we remember at the beginning of the 2nd Canto, when the Bhagavatam proper actually starts, Sukadeva is answering that question exactly: what should one hear about, what should one think about, what should one meditate about when death is approaching, right at the doorstep. Those few verses at the beginning of the Second Canto exactly echo this theme and I’d just like to review them. You might recall that first Sukadeva praises Pariksit for his
question: “Your very question is glorious because it elicits talk or instruction on atma-tattva, on the truth of the soul and the supreme soul, the relationship, and it therefore does welfare for the whole world. On the other hand:

srotavyadini rajendra nrnam santi sahasrasah apasyatam atma-tattvam grhesu grha-medhinam

Dhrtarastra here is an emblem here of the grhamedhi those whose intelligence is simply focussed on the grha, who are trying to enjoy even to the last second the comforts of home. And on the other hand those who have no vision of atma-tattva, the truth of the self, the need for inquiry into the Absolute Truth, they have millions of subject matters for hearing which have nothing to do with Krsna and simply which bewilder the mind and bring one deeply into the clutches of the modes of nature and the snake of time. Then he describes in a nutshell the life of such ignorant fools:

nidraya hriyate naktam vyavayena ca va vayah diva carthehaya rajan kutumba-bharanena va

This is material life in a nutshell. At night simply sleeping or having sex life. During the day earning money like crazy to support the family. And on the weekend go shopping. This is life in the West and whoever who takes on the Western mentality in any part of the world. Working, working, working, artha and kama, artha-kama, artha-kama, making money, trying to increase one’s comfort and pleasure in this material world, forgetting all about time and that everything will be taken away: one’s youth, one’s health, one’s life, one’s money. Everything will be taken away by time as Krsna says in Bhagavad-gita “mrtyuh sarva haras caham”. So in this situation one tries to take shelter and protection from various soldiers:

dehapatya-kalatradisv atma-sainyesv asatsv api tesam pramatto nidhanam pasyann api na pasyati

Precisely describing Dhrtarastra. One takes shelter of the fallible soldiers. First the body, keep the body very strong and fit as far as possible. Then you have your children, wife, the bank balance, the insurance policy, the extended family, the nation with its defence industry, the police, big walls around your house, so may ways we try to protect against the difficulites of material nature. But these are all fallible soldiers all inevitably going to swept away by the waves of time. So such a fool, such a mad person (pramatto), even though seeing-as Prabhupada says in the purport to that verse, we have already seen that our father or our father’s father has already died, we have seen that so many others have passed away, we have seen that whole kingdoms and empires have been swept away by time and yet still we’re thinking this empire, this American empire, is going to last. We have the strongest defence system that there’s ever been, we spend 450 billion dollars a year, everybody must be afraid. And yet a couple of guys with box cutters can take over a plan and knock down billion dollar buildings. A few madmen in a germ lab somewhere can create bacteria and some horrible disease that noone can stop.

There’s no stopping this force of time or danger, and this is why fear is another symptom here. Because all of this kala-sarpa, the gunas, the karmas, all of this change and this threat produces in the heart great fear:

sada samudvigna-dhiyam asad-grahat

Prahlada Maharaja preaching fearlessly to his father, who was always afraid that Visnu was coming to kill him, the most powerful in the universe.
Prahlada is just a little boy, a fragile little body supposedly, and he’s preaching fearlessly to his father, “O best of the demons, get out of the house” like he says here, get out of the house which is a blind well, get out of the house, go to the forest, Vrindavana, and go and take shelter of Hari, who Hiranyakasipu thought was his enemy. Why are you so disturbed, why is your mind always disturbed? “Sada samudvigna-dhiyam asad-grahat”, because you are grabbing onto, holding onto for dear life, that which is asat, temporary. You’re in the ocean of material life and you’re holding on to a life preserver that is leaking air. You’re holding onto something that is inevitably going to fail you, that’s what fallible means, it fails. All of these soldiers-the body, the wife, the money, the insurance policy, the state-everything fails. So if you put your faith in that which fails naturally you’re in anxiety. So even though this is obvious to anyone with a little intelligence, (quotes verse again) seeing it’s happened in the past, destruction, still they don’t see.

This is mayas illusion, maya javanikacchanam, it’s like a curtain, or more precisely it is like a distorting lens. You think you’re seeing but you’re actually seeing completely fallaciously. It’s like a dream world, Prabhupada makes that point in the purport to this verse. This purport is worth reviewing, it’s dehapatya kalatradisu. He says that this whole world world is moving by the modes of nature, just like an ocean, the ocean of samsara.
And the foam and the bubbles come together in that ocean in the form of living conditions such as the body, our friends, our family, home, and so forth. So bubbles are very very fragile, they come together and then they disappear. But because we have no atma-tattva, because we have no vision of the self or interest in that which is beyond this chain, we are victimised by ignorance. That’s a very nice phrase, we are victimised by ignorance, and therefore we become extremely fearful in this situation.

Therefore Sukadeva Goswami says go on after these two concise verses describing the situation of material life, he gives the solution:

tasmad bharata sarvatma bhagavan isvaro harih srotavyah kirtitavyas ca smartavyas cecchatabhayam

For those who wish fearlessness, this is the only solution. You must hear about, chant about, and surrender–and he gives no doubt as to who he’s speaking about, he gives four words that mean Krsna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He says sarvatma, the Supersoul; Bhagavan, the Supreme Personality of Godhead; isvara, the controller; and hari, Krsna, He who takes away all our anxiety and so many things.

So this is the solution. And what is the result?

etavan sankhya-yogabhyam sva-dharma-parinisthaya janma-labhah parah pumsam ante narayana-smrtih

Pariksit has come to the anta, the end of his life, and so has Dhrtarastra.
Pariksit is hearing Bhagavatam so he will properly remember Narayana at the end of life. Dhrtarastra is not going to be able to do that, he will attain a higher destination by the good instruction of Vidura.

So this is a very important verse. When you see a verse that begins with ‘etavan’, it’s often like a summary verse and is worth focussing on and remembering. There’s about a dozen of them in the Bhagavatam. So this one says whatever you practice in terms of sankhya, analysing this world; yoga, meditation, or activity in your sva-dharma in your own life, the fruit of your life will be if you can remember Narayana at the end of life.

And so the process of bhakti-yoga which is the sum and substance of the Srimad Bhagavatam is teaching us how we can become free of fear, even in this world of change and time, by cultivating constant remembrance of Krsna.
That alone can give the relief from fear because it lifts us right above and beyond the grip of kala-sarpa, out of the modes of nature and change.

So I’d like to read a few more verses, first of all in this purport Prabhupada refers to the Bhagavad Gita that Krsna Himself indentifies Himself with time three times in the Bhagavad Gita. Now we know that anything that’s repeated three times is very very important:

harer nama harer nama harer namaiva kevalam kalau nasty eva nasty eva nasty eva gatir anyatha

In this age of Kali there is no other way, there is no other way, there is no other way to achieve the final goal of life than to chant the holy name, chant the holy name, chant the holy name.

So similarly the fact that Krsna identifities with kala or time is very significant. He says: “kalah kalayatam aham”. This is also in the Tenth chapter, of subduers I am time. Time subdues everyone. We may be very proud, especially when you’re young, you feel invincible, when you’re 18, 19. Many of you will think back if you weren’t devotees then. . . this is why draft
18-19 year olds into the army. Because they can go out and they can forget that they can die at any moment and become soldiers, reckless.

But that’s of course a grand illusion. As time goes on you can feel your body becoming a little rickety here and there. You start to feel that “Whoa, I’m not really invincible, I’m very fragile”. So Krsna is the subduer of all in the form of time. He also says “aham evaksayah kalo”, I am also inexhaustible time. In this material world time never stops it just keeps pushing everything on towards ultimate destruction. And of course the most famous is “kalo ‘smi loka-ksaya-krt pravrddho”, in the 11th chapter when Arjuna’s asking “Who are you?” He’s seen the universal form, he’s seen all of the soldiers entering into the mouth and being crushed, it’s quite frightening to Arjuna as he sees this all-powerful, all-encompassing, multi-headed, multi-bellied form of Krsna, his friend, suddenly in this form, and he asks “Who are You?” “Kalo ‘smi loka-ksaya-krt pravrddho”: Time I am and I’ve come to destroy all these worlds. This is Krsna identifying Himself as time. He’s certainly the enemies of those, not of His own will, but of those who try to exploit this world, who are demons then they see God as time, as inevitable, invincible death.

Whereas devotees see Krsna as three-fold bending form, they are actually meant to die to material attractions before the point of death. This is what sannyasa is all about, civil death, giving up family, friends, comforts, sannyasa, complete nyasa, complete renunciation for the sake of focus on Krsna and spreading Krsna consciousness for the benefit of others. That isVidura’s mood here, he is a sannyasi.

Another nice verse that describes this process:

ayur harati vai pumsam udyann astam ca yann asau tasyarte yat-ksano nita uttama-sloka-vartaya

Both by rising and by setting, the sun decreases the duration of life of everyone, except those who utilizes their time glorifying Krsna.

Now what does that mean? Everyone here is ultimately going to die, we’re going to leave this body, but the life of a Vaisnava is really not the life of the body. The body is simply a tool that he or she uses as long as it’s able to be useful in Krsna’s service. But the service activity goes on beyond this body. Not so for those whose whole life is simply on the physical and mental realm, everything is lost. If all your hopes, prayers and desires are tied up and related to the body, then death is a total disaster, an annihilation of your life. And you go on you know not where to another term within this material world.

So in a very important way, devotees, especially pure devotees who use every second for Krsna’s service are beyond the grip of time. And that’s mentioned as one of the symptoms of ecstasty: “avyartha kalatvam”, not wasting even a second, seeing even a second apart from the remembrance of Krsna as a great disaster. There could be no greater anomaly or problem than to forget Krsna at every moment. Just think what a wonderful platform that is. That is the maha-bhagavat platform. If you read 11th Canto, you’ll find wonderful description from the Yogendras, about the qualities of the different levels of devotees, kanistha, madhyama, and uttama. So one of these qualities of the uttama-bhagavata is that he or she is extremely reluctant to forget Krsna’s lotus feet even for half a second. It says:

tri-bhuvana-vibhava-hetave ‘py akuntha-
smrtir ajitatma-suradibhir vimrgyat
na calati bhagavat-padaravindal
lava-nimisardham api yah sa vaisnavagryah

Vaisnavagryah means the foremost of Vaisnavas. So here’s a description in three verses of what their quality is. Just imagine, for the sake of all the wealth in all three worlds. If we were offered all the wealth in all the three worlds-billions of dollars–maybe we could use it for Krsna, sure I’ll forget Krsna for half a second for that, I can use it in his service. But these great Vaisnavas do not want to compromise even that much. For that sake they will not forget Krsna’s lotus feet even for half a second. And then it says:

bhagavata uru-vikramanghri-sakha-
nakha-mani-candrikaya nirasta-tape
hrdi katham upasidatam punah sa
prabhavati candra ivodite ‘rka-tapah

Krsna’s lotus feet are known as urukrama, they themselves peform wonderful activities. There’s an effulgence emanating from the toenails those lotus feet, and that effulgence is more soothing and cooling for the meditating soul than millions and millions of full moons. Moonlight is very soothing, the full moonshine comes down, and what it soothes is any tapa, any misery in this world is totally transcended by such a meditation. Therefore how can there be any possibility of difficulty for such a soul. If you’re in the desert all day and you’re extremely hot and tired and exhausted and the moonshine comes up and you’re soothed. And then the last one, if I can remember, is “visrjati hrdayam na yasya saksad”, I forget the Sanskrit, but there’s a very wonderful phrase, pranaya-rasanaya, means that Krsna never agrees to leave the heart of such a devotee because such a devotee has tied His lotus feet to his heart with the ropes of love.

So this is the characteristic of the uttama-bhagavat. This is the characteristic of Pariksit, naturally, and Sukadeva Goswami, and also Vidura. So we should aspire to that point of never forgetting Krsna at any moment. There’s a wonderful verse in the Padyavali describing one who spends all his day and night glorifying Krsna. And it has to do also with this passing of days. It says:

aho ahobhir na kaler viduyate
sudha-su-dhara-madhuram pade pade
dine dine candana-candra-sitalam
yaso yasoda-tanayasya giyate

Because at every step they drink a flood of wondrous nectar sweet, whose cooling power sandal paste enhanced with camphor can’t defeat, they feel as if the raging blaze of Kali’s days have never begun, how blessed are they who fill their days with praise of Sri Yasoda’s son.

So this is how we can live in this fire of Kali-yuga and still be very cool.
We’ll feel as if we’re floating along in a river of nectar, if we can fill our days with praise of Sri Yasoda’s son.

These are some of the points I wanted to cover. And then another aspect of time is that, as Prabhupada would famously say, it’s conspicious by its absence in the spiritual world. There’s a famous description of Goloka Vrndavana near the end of the Brahma-samhita. Lord Brahma is saying:

sriyah kantah kantah parama-purusah kalpa-taravo druma bhumis cintamani-gana-mayi toyam amrtam katha ganam natyam gamanam api vamsi priya-sakhi cid-anandam jyotih param api tad asvadyam api ca

sa yatra ksirabdhih sravati surabhibhyas ca su-mahan nimesardhakhyo va vrajati na hi yatrapi samayah bhaje svetadvipam tam aham iha golokam iti yam vidantas te santah ksiti-virala-carah katipaye

“I worship that transcendental seat, known as Svetadvipa where as loving consorts the Laksmis in their unalloyed spiritual essence practice the amorous service of the Supreme Lord Krsna as their only lover; where every tree is a transcendental purpose tree; where the soil is the purpose gem, all water is nectar, every word is a song, every gait is a dance, the flute is the favorite attendant, effulgence is full of transcendental bliss and the supreme spiritual entities are all enjoyable and tasty, where numberless milk cows always emit transcendental oceans of milk; where there is eternal existence of transcendental time, who is ever present and without past or future and hence is not subject to the quality of passing away even for the space of half a moment. That realm is known as Goloka only to a very few self-realized souls in this world.”

So this is is the destination we should aspire for. We can experience that sense even in this world. Just in my short career in Krsna consciousness, so many things have changed. I’ve changed, my body has changed certainly, Mayapur Dham has changed enormously just in the last nine years since I saw it. Many things have grown up, there are so many more devotees, things are changing because this is the material world. But the essence of who we are, and what we worship and our philosophy, Krsna, the gopis, all of things never change. Certainly the Hare Krsna mantra doesn’t change. What will change, hopefully, is our appreciation for it, our deepening understanding and relish for it through progressive purification from offences aparadhas.

But the foundation, all these things are totally steady and rock-like. They haven’t changed ever, in eons, and they never will change. Krsna will never change. He’ll always be going through that cycle of lila, He’ll always be meeting the gopis and cowherd boys, enjoying His pastimes, for eternity.

This is a wonderful thing. If we can absorb our mind and hopes and aspirations in these matters, then we’ll have this unchanging quality in our lives and we’ll always feel youthful. Just as you see Srila Prabhupada. Such a wonderful example of enthusiasm and the energy of youth even though his body was 70 or even 80 years old. He was so enthusiastic in his preaching, in his activities, hearing, chanting, in every aspect of devotional service.

That quality of changelessness will be there in our heart and we won’t feel this fear that comes when everything, all our hopes are placed on this changeable and destructible material world.

This is the real teaching that Vidura is giving Dhrtarastra. He’s waking him up, he is, with words, slapping him in the face. “Will you wake up? Jiva jago! You’re sinking down now into this morass of illusion which is going to take you to a very low destination.” And out of great mercy and love he’s returned home to get Dhrtarastra out of there. The first words are “Get out”, the first words he speaks. And then he goes on to describe in very strong words why he should get out, because his position is very disgraceful.

Now in the modern world there millions and billions of Dhrtarastras, trying to hang on to the last moment in household life, some retirement community.
“We’ve worked all our life, now we can play golf all day and visit those places we didn’t visit.” It’s insanity, it’s pramatta. The end of life is for progressive renunciation and cultivation of this knowledge because that critical point is coming when we will have to leave this body, and if we’ve simply wasted our life in sense enjoyment and sense indulgence then who knows where we’ll go, certainly to a lower destination. “Jaghanya guna vrtti stha, adho gacchanti tamasah”, Krsna says in the 14th Chapter.

So all of this instruction is meant for us because the Bhagavatam doesn’t compromise because constantly, throughout all the cantos, we’ll have this contrast between the dangers and evils of materialistic life, simple hedonistic life, and the great value of performing austerity, self-control, directing our mind and our intelligence toward the lotus feet of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, awakening our understanding of our eternal relationship with the Lord, leading us out of this grip of time. As Prabhupada says, the only solution is to get rid of eternal time. Of course eternal time will go on because it’s eternal, but what we can get rid of is its influence over us, if we can return back to the world where there is no past and there is no future, there is simply the eternal present in the eternal loving relationship with Krsna.

OK, does that say five to nine or seven or something? OK, we’ll leave a little time for discussion. Thank you very much for your attention. If anyone has any comments or questions we can indulge them now. Yes, Prabhu.
I’ll repeat the question.

(question by Ekalavya Das)

Yes, OK, the question is the kala-sarpa, the snake of time takes everything away. And Krsna is known as Hari, He also takes everything away. So what is the difference?

Krsna says in Bhagavad Gita “mrtyu sarva haras caham”, He even uses the word hara, which is obviously the root of hari, but the whole difference is the consciousness of he who is having everything taken away. In one instance Krsna’s taking away out of a great favour:

yasyaham anugrhnami harisye tad-dhanam sanaih.

He says to Yudhisthira, this very Yudhisthira who’s listening very attentively here, later on in the Eleventh Canto, that when I really show my mercy on someone I gradually take away all of his wealth. What does that mean, how is that mercy. The idea is that when someone is basically a devotee, he’s really a Vaisnava, but there are few little things that he’s hanging on to that are actually impediments in his advancement, then Krsna will often rip those away, sometimes in what may seem to be a painful way, but shortly thereafter one realises to be great mercy.

Citraketu is a perfect example. Citraketu was really a great devotee but he was totally hung up on his son, whom he had gotten after long difficulty. By Krsna’s arrangement that son was cruelly taken away from him, and then there was this incredible lamentation scene where’s he’s practically banging his head against the walls, falling down unconscious in the palace. But then, by the grace of Narada, when the soul came back and preached transcendental knowledge through the medium of that very son, he awoke and he then went on to his perfection. So Krsna does that out of His mercy, He takes away our attachments when He sees that they’re impediments. So that’s Hari.

In the form of the kala-sarpa, that’s a different kind of taking away.
That’s when you’re hanging on to it for dear life, you’re not really a Vaisnava-deep down everyone’s a Vaisnava, but your mentality is different.
When you’re bitten by a snake it’s a very shocking thing. If you’re walking out here, heaven forbid, Krsna forbid, Lord Caitanya forbid that it would happen to one of us here, but there are cobras around, sometimes they come out when the floods are here. So if they bite you suddenly and there’s no one around, you have no remedy, so there’s death taking away. But if you’re not a devotee, you don’t have any shelter, it’s just a very shocking experience. And that’s the way people die in the hospitals, everywhere, where they’re not surrounded by Vaisnavas chanting the holy names, they’re not taking shelter of Krsna, they’re not trying to turn their mind to the Lord, and it’s a horrible experience for them. They see the Yamadutas coming. This the difference. Krsna mercifully takes things away, as here, in the form of a Vaisnava. The sadhu comes to cut the attachments through his words and if we can receive them we’ll be blessed. Yes?

(question by Nandakishora Das)

The question is there sastric evidence on how a devotee leaves in contrast to how a materialist leaves.

Well, we always hear and this I think was mentioned in Srila Prabhupada’s leaving, that auspicious leaving is leaving through the mouth or through the brahma-randhra, but to my knowledge I don’t remember reading that there’s a description of which avenue. . . but the point is that one personlity leaves, it’s like a festival. Like Dhruva, I was just reading recently the story of Dhruva, he placed his foot on the head of death and climbed into the Vaikuntha airplane. So there’s no question of fear there. The whole problem is you’re fearful when you’re afraid of things being taken away from you. When everything is being lost and you don’t know what your destination is. If you have your assurance of going to Vaikuntha, the Visnudutas have arrived in their airplane, or something similar, then it is a great victory.
That’s why we call it a samadhi. It’s not a defeat, it’s not a loss. So this is the main point the technical aspects are something else. Yes, Prabhu?

(question)

Right, that’s a good question. The comment is that someone may use the knowledge in the Bhagavad Gita, Sixth Chapter, where Krsna says if you accumulate some kind of punya then you can get born in a rich family.

What it really says is if your yoga is not complete, then you can be born in a wealthy family. But a better position is to be born in a family of yogis.
In other words, even if you’re very poor, if you’re in a family of yogis, bhakti-yogis, that’s a much better position. It’s explained there. But you have to read the whole book. In the 9th Chapter Krsna is saying:

ksine punye martya-lokam visanti
evam trayi-dharmam anuprapanna
gatagatam kama-kama labhante

He’s saying by all of this sacrifice and worshipping Indra, you can go to Indraloka and enjoy godly delights, drink the soma rasa, and enjoy visala, means for a long time. But then when your punya is finished, like when your credit card is up, you put it once more into the ATM and it just spits it out “Sorry, there’s nothing left”, then you have to go back to work.
(chuckles) So similarly you have to come back down to earth and again work with karma, birth, death, so you just come and go, you don’t solve the problems of life. It’s ultimately self-defeating. The things you enjoy in the heavenly planets are your worst enemy. Those are things that bewilder your mind. So He says:

ananyas cintayanto mam
ye janah paryupasate

On the other hand, those who worship Me with one-pointed mind, I provide what they lack, I give them their yoga and ksema, their necessities, their security, and ultimately they get the great boon of coming back to Me, no more birth and death.

So the calculation. . . the materialists are always trying to gain the system, trying to beat the system. “OK so I may die, I know I’m going to do, but I’ll worship Indra, I’ll worship Candra and I’ll do much better in the next life.” Yes, but the real atma-tattva is you look for the eternal situation. Not even just for a million years in Indraloka. What is your eternal situation? That’s what we’re talking about in the beginning, to separate the sat from the asat, right in the Second Chapter. So those who are looking for ten years, twenty years, a hundred years, a million years, ten million years, that’s still not long enough. What did we just read, even in Brahmaloka they have to die, they are afraid of death, so many things. So beyond the fearful platform of dying or losing your accumulated wealth-the demigods are always getting kicked out by the demons from their planets, there’s wars going on-there’s no secure place in this world except the lotus feet of Sri Sri Radha Madhava and Sri Sri guru.

So we’re a little bit overtime and I may not get another chance. So I have a chance now. When we think about it, Sri Nityananda Prabhu, when He was sent out by Caitanya Mahaprabhu was doing the exact same thing that Vidura is doing here. He was going around to all the homes, trying to wake up the people to Krsna consciousness. Caitanya Mahaprabhu, udilo aruna puraba bhage, you spend your days decorating your body, don’t you know you’re going to die soon? It’s the same thing, right out of the Bhagavatam. Just simply fill your mouth with the holy name of Sri Hari. So since we have that conncetion I’d like to share just a couple of verses from this Nityanandastaka which describes the advent of this preaching of Nityananda Prabhu. And it’s really based on this phrase which Caitanya Mahaprabhu gave and we can all emblazen in our heart “bolo krsna, bhaja krsna, koro krsna siksa”. Chant Krsna’s name, worship and serve Him with love, follow His intstructions and teach them to others.

Chant Sri Krsna’s name and worship Him with all your heart, Follow his instructions and unto others them impart.

So we can make a little plaque like that. So when Caitanya Mahaprabhu started the preaching movement He instructed Nityananda and Haridas to start going around Navadvipa with this instruction.