So, in the previous verse, the women were glorifying the Lord because not only does He create the material world, but He also has some other pastimes.
So, besides the creation of the material world, the Lord enters into the material world to perform certain tasks. So, though the Lord enters into the material world, He remains unaffected and unchanged. So, He is always spiritual.
And He can manifest not one form, but many forms. So, it is a struggle for many people even to accept that God has a form. For instance, the Mayavadis will say, yes, we accept avatars, but they are actually material. They are not spiritual at all.
Others will accept, okay, God has a form. Maybe he can appear in the world, but maybe once only.
So, the Vedic literature describes, the Lord has a form. Not only He has one form, He has many forms and he appears countless times in one day of Brahma. Of course Brahma lives for a hundred years, so the lord appears many times.
Then, after that, of course, all the universes are destroyed. But again, everything is created. And it is creation and destruction all done by the Supreme Lord.
So, people have difficulty understanding that the creation is repetitive. Maybe there is one creation, that’s it. But no, it is repetitive.
And in all these creations, the Lord keeps appearing every day of Brahma so many times. So, He appears within the world, not to create it. It is already created.
So, the Lord has other purposes of appearing within the material world. So, that is explained here. He shows His powers.
He shows truthfulness. He shows mercy. He shows fame.
And for what purpose? So, He does this for the auspiciousness of all the living entities. Why he has to do this. This is because it is the material world and the material world is made up of three gunas. Sometimes, Tamoguna is prominent. Sometimes, Rajoguna is prominent. Sometimes, Sattva is prominent. When Rajoguna and Tamoguna become too prominent, there is a problem.
And what is that problem? It is explained here. It is Adharma. These people encourage population not to follow the rules set up by the Lord.
What this means ultimately is unbridled sense gratification for the rulers, not for the others. So, this is for the rulers, very good, they can enjoy as much as they want.
But it creates a disturbance for the rest of the world. So, we know that of course Vishnu is in charge of Sattva guna. That means maintenance.
So, the Supreme Lord likes to maintain the system. When it gets disturbed, then He has to do something. Of course, He does not always have to appear personally.
He assigns the Manus and their descendants to rule over the population and keep Dharma intact. So, that is generally fine. But even then, sometimes we get disturbance.
Inspite of the Manus, in spite of their descendants, we get demons like King Vena. Or we get Hiranyakasipu, Hiranyaksha. And of course, more recently we get Kamsa.
So, these are the kings affected by Tamoguna giving Adharma to the material world. So, they enjoy, other people’s suffer. So, in these special cases where even the Manus cannot handle the situation, then the Lord comes as Avatar.
Often, He will kill all these Adharmic kings. And He will restore order in the universe. The whole battle of Kurukshetra,was fought because Duryodhana and Dhrtarashtra, being demoniac, were trying to control the whole world.
So, Krishna appeared and He arranged for the Pandavas to annihilate all of these demons. So, this is one reason that the Lord will appear in the material world. This is also explained in Bhagavad Gita.
However, there is a more, a deeper purpose of the Lord. And that is to give joy to the devotees. So, of course, He does that by killing the demons and restoring Dharma that’s joyful for the devotees. But besides that, then the Lord displays His relationship with His devotees. So the other reason that the lord comes in the material world is to display his relationship with the devotees.
Thus, we see here, Krishna has association with the Pandavas. He has association with the people of Dwaraka. This has nothing to do with establishing Dharma, killing demons.
In Vrindavan, Krishna also kills many demons. But more significant than killing demons in Vrindavan is His pastime with the devotees. And thus we have descriptions of the Rasa Lila or Damodar Lila or lifting over Damodar Lila in Vrindavan Hill.
So, through these pastimes, the Lord gives bliss to the devotees. And by doing so, He also gives inspiration for devotees in the future. So, through these pastimes, we understand that there is a Supreme Lord.
He has a beautiful form. He is the creator of the material world. Not only He creates the material world, but He protects the material world by coming into it as avatars.
Not only He protects the material world, but He gives inspiration and bliss to all the devotees by His pastimes. So, the devotees appreciate all these aspects of the Supreme Lord. They are all to be praised.
And thus we see here, the women of Hastinapur are praising the Lord for all these different types of activities. Of course, as I mentioned previously, ultimately, the Lord has higher forms and lower forms. So, the Purusa avatars take care of creation and destruction of the material world.
The forms of Bhagavan come into the material world, kill the demons, and restore Dharma. Those forms of Bhagavan also display pastimes with the devotees that give rise to bliss.
So, these blissful pastimes with the devotees that is ultimately the most important feature of the Supreme Lord. And the form of the Supreme Lord that displays the most wonderful activities of the devotees is Krishna.
And thus, in Bhagavatham, Krishna gets the most glorification. So here, the women of Hastinapur are glorifying Krishna. When he goes to Dwaraka, then the people of Dwaraka glorify Krishna.
So, in all cases, Krishna gets the highest glorification. Throughout the Bhagavatam, we’ll see many glorifications of Krishna. However, the most attractive glorifications of Krishna will come in the 10th Canto.
And there, the inhabitants of Krishna, of Goloka or Vrindavan, they will glorify Krishna. And so, these are considered to be the highest glorifications. Why? Because they’re considered only with glorification of his sweet pastimes and his sweet form in Vrindavan.
So, this is the special quality of Krishna.
Q & A
QUESTION 1 : Is Prthu Maharaj a jiva tattva?
He is avatar of the Lord, but he is Shaktivesh avatar.. Shaktivesh avatar.
QUESTION 2 : So, you see, in Kali Yuga, the demons are more doing atrocious activities than in Satya Yuga like that. Because just after Krishna departed in this Dwapara Yuga, so, degradation has happened in many fold times. So, how to understand that Krishna will appear in this Kali Yuga? Like you have said that Bhagavatam is the incarnation of Krishna and Caitanya Mahaprabhu has come, but the degradation, the atrociousness of the demons are heavy here. So, what does the Lord wants to tell to us?
So, naturally through time, as we go from Satya Yuga to Kali Yuga, there will be more Tamoguna. There will be more Adharma. And thus, the bull of Dharma is standing on one leg out of four in Kali Yuga.
In each age, the Lord comes particularly as the Yuga avatar and he establishes proper Dharma and proper Bhakti. And definitely against the, let’s say, the force of Tamoguna of Kali Yuga, there is some upliftment of the Jivas. Nevertheless, as we see in the description of the Bhagavatam, as Kali Yuga progresses, it gets worse and worse.
So, why doesn’t the Lord do anything? But that happens one thousand times in one day of Brahma. Same thing. In one sense, we can say this is the misfortune of the Jivas to be born in Kali Yuga.
Yet through the yuga dharma, the Jivas, the human beings, can take advantage of the Yuga Dharma and counteract the Adharma. So the nature of the Kali yuga dharma Nama Sankirtana is it is freely given to everybody.
Of course, not everybody is going to take it because Adharma and Tamoguna are so prominent. Still, the power of Nama Sankirtana is such that you can penetrate even the darkest ignorance in Tamoguna and Adharma, we see that in the past times of Caitanya Mahaprabhu.
So, those who fortunately get the mercy of the devotees in Kali Yuga, they can counteract this Adharma and Tamoguna. At the same time, we know the nature of time as Kali Yuga progresses, more Adharma, more Adharma, more Adharma. At the same time, the devotees will always exist to chant the holy name and at least for some of the people, give them hope to get out of this position.
QUESTION 3 : In the Bhagavatam it is mentioned that there are multivarious incarnations, like there are waves in the sea, that type of incarnations Lord takes in this material world, but all of them are not mentioned in the Srimad Bhagavatam. So, the number of incarnations which the Lord takes are many, just like the waves in the sea. So, the incarnations which are mentioned in the Bhagavatam are few. Is there some missed out?
So, those forms mentioned in the Bhagavatam are the main Avatar forms. And thus we cannot invent new forms.
But then we will say, well then the Lord is limited. But these forms keep appearing in every day of Brahma throughout his life and in every other universe and there are billions and billions of universes. So, in that way the avatars are countless, going on forever.
And they existed in all the previous creations and they will also exist after this universe is destroyed and new universes are created, avatars will keep appearing.
QUESTION 4 : Maharaj, we say a particular incarnation is full incarnation. We say a particular incarnation is full incarnation depending upon the rasas the Lord reciprocates with the devotees. So, in this connection, we mostly see that Krishna and Rama are the two prominent ones who actually relish all the rasas with devotees. So is there any more or these are the two which are prominent?
So in Caitanya caritamrta also in Laghu Bhagavatamrta there we have a list of different type of Avatars like prabhava and vaibhava and paravasta forms and at the top we have a list of purna forms. Rupa Goswami puts Nrsimhadeva, Rama and Krishna in that Purna category.
And of those Krishna is put at the very top. Of course, Krishna also has a Purna form, a Purnatara form and a Purnatama form. So, Krishna is put at the top because though Rama has many pastimes and his affection for his devotees is very intense, still his rasas are limited. Devotees cannot aspire for Sakhya rasa or Madhurya rasa with Ramachandra. So, Krishna has a complete display of all rasas. So, he is put at the top.
QUESTION 5 : Do distinctions between material and spiritual energies exist in the vision of a pure devotee?
Well if we have prema bhakta , no distinctions, everyone is a pure devotee, even the demons. Everything is the spiritual world.
For the Madhyama, he makes distinctions between devotee and demon and neutral person. And among devotees, he makes distinctions between Kanishta, Madhyama and Uttama.
QUESTION 6 : In other Vaishnava Sampradayas, they consider four-handed Vishnu form as supreme and two-handed Krishna’s form as an avatar. Are they committing an offense? Please help to understand.
As I mentioned the other day, that all these forms are actually one form. So we cannot say that one is inferior, superior, one comes from the other etc. because they are all eternal and they are all one Bhagavan. But persons who are attracted to the powers of the Supreme Lord in Vaikuntha, they will see that as the supreme form. Those who are attracted to the sweetness of the Lord will think that Krishna is the supreme form.
QUESTION 7 : In 1st Canto, 8th Chapter, Srila Prabhupada mentions that Kunti Devi was shown far more favor than Devaki Mata. Please help to understand this.
So of course the Lord is merciful to all of His devotees.
At the same time, according to the intensity of their Prema, then the Lord responds accordingly. Of course it is difficult to grade Prema because it is spiritual. But definitely, Acharyas do take the Prema in Vrindavan as superior to the Prema in Mathura or Dwaraka.
And why? Because it is more intense. So outside of Vrindavan, then the various devotees have various intensities of their Prema. And accordingly, the Lord will show mercy to these devotees.
But it may be difficult to tell who gets more mercy. So in Brhad Bhagavatamrita, there is one indication of who gets more mercy. So the one who gets more association with the Lord gets more mercy.
So the Pandavas say, well, the Yadus are with Krishna more than they are with us, so therefore they get more mercy. But the Yadus say, well, Krishna comes out in the morning and sees us, but then He disappears again. Now Uddhava is always with Krishna, so he gets more mercy than all the other Yadus.
But then Uddhava says, well, I am always with Krishna, but he is not with me. He is always thinking of the people of Vrindavan.
So the people of Vrindavan get the most mercy that’s the conclusion.
QUESTION 8 : In Bhagavad Gita 1st chapter Arjuna speaks about casteism , should we follow the casteism because every family has rituals, rules, traditions and regulations.
So we see in Bhagavad Gita, Mahabharata, even in Bhagavatam, the Pandavas followed their dharmas. We see even the associates of Lord Caitanya follow dharma. At the same time, they all understand that this dharma is material.
We have varnas divided according to material gunas. As devotees, we always say, the devotee is above the gunas. Therefore, the concept of dharma and varnashrama is limited.
Bhakti is unlimited. However, the devotee lives in the material world, has a material body and lives in society.
So he has to perform actions with his body, he has to eat, he has to support his family. So, following dharma is useful for that. And the Lord maintains that dharma so that all the living entities can support their material bodies in this material world.
However, those material dharmas and rules should not interfere with the performance of bhakti. They should support bhakti. Where they start interfering with bhakti, then they should be rejected.