740213 - Lecture BG 04.05 - Vrndavana

Lectures by Date, 1974

His Divine Grace
A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada

740213BG-VRNDAVAN - February 13, 1974 - 19:12 Minutes

(poor recording)

Pradyumna: (leads chanting, devotees repeat) Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya.

Prabhupāda: No other copies? Yes?

bahūni me vyatītāni

janmāni tava cārjuna

tāny ahaṁ veda sarvāṇi

na tvaṁ vettha parantapa

(BG 4.5)

Find that verse.

Pradyumna: (leads chanting, etc.)

śrī-bhagavān uvāca

bahūni me vyatītāni

janmāni tava cārjuna

tāny ahaṁ veda sarvāṇi

na tvaṁ vettha parantapa

(BG 4.5)

śrī-bhagavān uvāca—the Personality of Godhead said; bahūni—many; me—of Mine; vyatītāni—have passed; janmāni—births; tava—of yours; ca—and also; arjuna—O Arjuna; tāni—all those; aham—I; veda—do know; sarvāṇi—all; na—not; tvam—yourself; vettha—know; parantapa—O subduer of the enemy.

Translation: "The Blessed Lord said: Many, many births both you and I have passed. I can remember all of them, but you cannot, O subduer of the enemy!"

Prabhupāda: So, bhagavān uvāca. The Supreme Personality of Godhead says the distinction between God and the living entities. The rascal philosophers, they think that they are equal to God, but God does not say that, "You are equal to Me." Where does He say? God says, mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat (BG 7.7): "There is nobody superior than Me or equal to Me." Therefore His name is Asamordhva, "Nobody is equal nor higher than Me." Therefore God is there; that is the meaning of God is there. If God has anyone equal to Him or greater than Him, then what kind of God He is? Ask these rascals' God, the so-called God, "Do you think if anyone is equal or higher than you?" If he says: "Nobody is higher than me," then anyone can insulted him, anyone can arrest him. How he can say that nobody is higher than him? So therefore, particularly, particularly the word Bhagavān, nobody can be equal or greater than the Supreme Person, and foolish persons should be kept as absolute, not relative. He says: "Arjuna, the difference between you and Me—that you forget, I do not forget." That is it.

God knows past, future and present—everything. Just like the sun is there in the sky, and this earthly planet is here. So the earthly planet is rotating, and the sun is there on the head of the earthly planet. So our, this rotating means day and night, but the sun planet has no day and night; no past, present or future—everything is present. It is a commonsense example: the sun planet is rotating where it is. The sun is back side it is night, and the front side it is day—so day and night for us, not for the sun. Similarly, Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is compared with the sun: kṛṣṇa—sūrya-sama; māyā haya andhakāra (CC Madhya 22.31). And our this darkness is a māyā, because actually there is no darkness. The sun is always there, but on account of position of the earth, we are thinking this is night, this is day. In the material creation the sun, is the biggest of all planets, there is no such thing as māyā, or night. So why Kṛṣṇa will have māyā?

But this Māyāvadi says that when God comes, He also takes the material body. That is called Māyāvāda. But God does not say. He says, sambhavāmy ātma-māyayā (BG 4.6), "By My own spiritual potency," not by the force of material potency. Because we accept this body by force.

prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni

guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ

ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā

iti manyate

(BG 3.27)

Kartāham iti manyate. I am not kartā; I am being forced by the material nature. I am forced by material nature why? Because I am associating with the modes of material nature:

kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya

sad-asad-yoni-janmasu

(BG 13.22)

I am forced to take birth as this human being or as cat, as dog, as tree, as demigod, as beast—so many, 8,400,000 forms. I am associating, just like I am contaminating some disease, and I am forced to accept the effect of such contamination. Everyone knows, this is medical science. Similarly, kāraṇaṁ guṇa-saṅgo 'sya: we are associating with goodness, associating with passion, associating with ignorance, and according to the association we are getting a body, sad-asad-yoni-janmasu, higher or lower grade of birth. That is not in my hand. It is in my hand because I am infected a certain type of quality of the material nature, and nature is offering me the similar body. It is not nature's fault. If I am getting degraded body, degraded life, that is my fault. That is my fault.

Therefore, when you have got senses or developed consciousness we should associate with goodness and transcendental to goodness. Goodness is brahminical qualification, and transcendental to goodness is Vaiṣṇava quality—above the brāhmaṇas. Brahmaṇo hi pratiṣṭhāham (BG 14.27).

brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā

na śocati na kāṅkṣati

mad-bhaktiṁ labhate parām

(BG 18.54)

After acquiring the qualification of a brāhmaṇa—satya, śama, dama, titikṣā—one is raised to the platform of a Vaiṣṇava; therefore a Vaiṣṇava is already a brāhmaṇa. So our fault is that because we are living entities . . . aṇor aṇīyān mahato mahīyān (Kaṭha Upaniṣad 1.2.20): Kṛṣṇa is greater than the greatest, and we are smaller than the smallest, because our identity, spiritual identity, is very, very small: one-ten thousandth part of the upper portion tip of the hair.

keśāgra-śata-bhāgasya

śatāṁśa-sadṛśātmakaḥ

(CC Madhya 19.140)

Very, very small. Therefore we are prone to be fallen down. But Kṛṣṇa, being the greater than the greatest, He is not known to be; therefore His name is Acyuta, "who never falls." His another name is Acyuta. There is a quotation from Brahma-saṁhitā:

advaitam acyutam anādim ananta-rūpam

ādyaṁ purāṇa-puruṣaṁ nava-yauvanaṁ ca

vedeṣu durlabham adurlabham ātma-bhaktau

govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi

(Bs. 5.33)

Kṛṣṇa's another name, Govinda's another name, is Acyuta. Acyuta means "Who never falls," falls down. He never becomes conditioned by māyā. He is always above, and because He's above māyā, therefore He says that:

bahūni me janmāni

janmāni tava cārjuna

tāny ahaṁ veda

na tvaṁ vettha parantapa

(BG 4.5)

So that is the difference; that is the difference—because He does not change His form. You can understand very easily: we forget because we change our bodies. Our yesterday's body and today's body, not the same. Then how we are getting old? If my yesterday's body is the same as today's body, then how I can be called getting old? So we are changing body every moment; that is scientific, medical science. So because we are changing body, therefore we forget, and Kṛṣṇa says, tāny ahaṁ veda sarvāṇi (BG 4.5): but He remembers, or He knows everything as it is; therefore He does not change. Where is the difficulty to understand between Kṛṣṇa's body and my body?

Here it is said that, "My dear Arjuna, you are My personal associate. You and Me, both of us, we are change every time body, or transmigrated," but Kṛṣṇa is Paramātmā. Ātmā and Paramātmā, they live together, so when the ātmā changes body, Paramātmā also changes body—but He remains in His own body. He goes with the ātmā, but He does not change His body. But the change of body is of the jivātmā. Vāsāṁsi jīrṇāni yathā vihāya (BG 2.22). Therefore He remembers. This is the simple logic. Kṛṣṇa says that tāny ahaṁ veda sarvāṇi: "I remember." Because his question was that:

aparaṁ bhavato janma

paraṁ janma vivasvataḥ

(BG 4.4)

"Vivasvān, the sun-god, was born long, long ago, millions of years ago, and You are born just recently. How I can understand that You taught this philosophy to the sun-god?" The answer is that "Yes, now you see that I am contemporary to you by birth." Therefore the next verse you will see, janma karma me divyam (BG 4.9): "But My birth and your birth is not the same."

Just like the sunrise. This is also morning; it is the birth of the sun. Another child is also born in the same morning. But the birth of the sun and the birth of the child is not the same. You can understand: the sun was already there in the sky, but when the planet turns we come in front of the sun, although the sun has not taken birth. It is not that because the sun rises from the eastern side, it does not mean that eastern side is the mother of the sun—it appears like that. Similarly, Kṛṣṇa, although appears as the son of Devaki, He is not a child of ordinary mother or an ordinary child. Janma karma ca me divyam. If this secret one can understand, that Kṛṣṇa's birth and my birth is not the same; Kṛṣṇa's activities and my activities are not the same; Kṛṣṇa's position and my position is not the same . . . Kṛṣṇa says that:

janma karma ca me divyam,

evaṁ yo vetti tattvataḥ

(BG 4.9)

Not by the fools: "Oh, I know Kṛṣṇa. He is . . . (indistinct) . . . popular. His father . . . (indistinct) . . ." Not that. Beyond that, beyond that knowledge—divyam. Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He has no birth nor death. He appears and disappears in a different way, in a transcendental way, divyam. In this way, if we can understand Kṛṣṇa, then we become liberated, immediately.

tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma

naiti mām eti so 'rjuna

(BG 4.9)

So here bhagavān uvāca . . . first of all He is Bhagavān, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Vyāsadeva never said kṛṣṇa uvāca, because he knows Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Bhagavān. Therefore when Kṛṣṇa says, he says bhagavān uvāca, but when Arjuna says, he says arjuna uvāca. He does not say Bhagavān. That Bhagavān is Kṛṣṇa, so bhagavān uvaca. So Bhagavān. Why . . . what is the meaning of all this Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement? Because we accept Kṛṣṇa as the supreme authority. As the other day the Russian representative at Delhi, I was speaking to him that, "You accept a leader like Lenin, and we accept Kṛṣṇa as the leader. Now where is the difference of our philosophy?" We have to accept one leader, whatever political creed you follow. You have to accept one leader; that is a fact. Without accepting a leader you cannot propagate your political philosophy. So in philosophy there is no difference, either in the Communist or this, association . . . (indistinct) . . . Congress, so many other political parties. One has to accept. In every action one has . . . (end)