So, this chapter starts with explaining how Devahūti is tired of material existence and is seeking protection from ignorance, so to say. And we have been hearing the whole week that she is actually very qualified person. She's the daughter of Svāyambhuva Manu, the first Manu in the day of Brahmā. And she has been married to Kardama Muni, and they have first... they have done penance together of thirty years. And then they have had a very materialistic life in this mansion that was created by the great mystic yogi and devotee, Kardama Muni. And then they have had nine daughters and one son, Kapiladeva. And Kardama Muni has left, and Devahūti is still there with her son. And that is very, very special, of course, because the son is none other than the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
So, but she is very much tired of material existence. And even though she has had such a qualified and wonderful life, so to say, she's still not satisfied. And many persons who join the Hare Krishna movement, they are suffering, either from ignorance... "I don't understand why everything is going in this way and that way, I don't understand anything." Many persons are very confused when they come to Krishna consciousness. And sometimes they also have an identity crisis when they grow up and...
Yeah, after school... many people, after school, suddenly they are free and they don't know what to do with their lives. They are very confused, because as long as they were in school they knew exactly, "I have to go up in the morning, five days a week," and everything was taken care of. So, many times there is some crisis of identity. And, yeah, also mid-life problem, when they call them mid-life, that a person coming to forty or forty-five years old have a crisis, because he understands that this is life, it will not be more than this. And so mid-life crisis, so to say. And there are crises when somebody dies who is close to you, and this makes a person very confused.
So then, there are four persons who never surrender to Krishna, explained in Bhagavad-gītā: the duṣkṛtina, mūḍhā, narādhamā, the grossly foolish and narādhamā, one who is a little more civilized, so to say, but has no religion, they are narādhamā, lowest of mankind. Māyayāpahṛta-jñānā, those who have a little more intelligence, so to say, they are philosophers, authors, but their knowledge is stolen by illusion, by Māyā. They cannot understand the real situation they are in, in this world. And then you have the āsuraṁ bhāvam āśritāḥ, those who take shelter of demonic principles. This is also explained in Bhagavad-gītā: avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā mānuṣīṁ tanum āśritam paraṁ bhāvam ajānanto mama bhūta-maheśvaram. "Fools deride Me, belittle Me, when I descend in the human form. They don't know My transcendental nature, My supreme dominion over all that be."
So, these four categories of people do not... never surrender to Krishna. They are fools, because they say that Krishna is just a myth or some story, or that He is, yeah, okay, He is a powerful person, but He has a body like us. So, this is... and when people have this idea, then moghāśā mogha-karmāṇo mogha-jñānā vicetasaḥ rākṣasīm āsurīṁ caiva prakṛtiṁ mohinīṁ śritāḥ. In that bewildered condition, they are attracted to demonic, atheistic views. And their hopes for liberation, their hope for knowledge, and the fruit of activities are all defeated. So, this is the fate of those who are demonic or oppose Krishna.
Chairs... there are chairs here too, you can choose to sit here.
And then there are four persons who may suffer in one way or another: catur-vidhā bhajante māṁ janāḥ sukṛtino 'rjuna ārto jijñāsur arthārthī jñānī ca bharatarṣabha. Four kinds of pious persons begin to render devotional service to Me: one who is suffering, physically or mentally... and actually many are suffering who are coming to Krishna consciousness. And or somebody wanting to have wealth, looking for wealth. This is more applicable in India, I think, that somebody is coming to the movement because they see the people there, they have nice clothes, and they have smart phones, and therefore they think that this is a good way to increase our wealth, so to say.
But, yeah. And then also inquisitive persons. Whenever I think of this inquisitive person, I think of Mahāmuni. You might remember him. He was a Swedish person, and he came with a friend of him to the temple once, and they were so inquisitive, they had so many questions. And whenever somebody gave class, they had so many questions: "How can this be?" and "How do we know this?" and "What you are doing?" and so on. So this is inquisitiveness, is also a way to surrender to Krishna. And then also those who are looking for knowledge, knowledge of the Supreme Lord, knowledge of the Absolute Truth.
So these things are there, and we can recognize maybe at least three of them in ourselves. Maybe we didn't have... we were not poor and suffering from poverty, but we are suffering from the body and mind, and also inquisitive, we are curious, and also looking for knowledge. All these things.
And this is also this... in the Western world there is anti-cult movement. And I don't know if they are so much active nowadays, but we had previously here in Sweden some cases of kidnapping devotees, and trying to persuade them to leave Krishna consciousness. So, these anti-cult people, they sometimes say that, "Yeah, this sect, they are using the opportunity when people have some crisis in life, and then they take them, and they have the answers to their questions." So this is... is not honest, so to say, of the movement. But actually what we can understand, the reality is that Krishna has made them suffer, He has arranged so that people suffer something so that they will surrender. Or He arranged that they will suffer from confusion or whatever. Because Krishna is well-wisher and friend and benefactor of all living entities. So He does this through material nature, which is like a shadow following Him.
So, Devahūti here, she is surrendering to her son, who is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. And she has said that He is her transcendental eye. Our material blunt senses cannot help us see... understand Krishna. But when the eye is purified, then we can understand Krishna, like He is. And in the Sanskrit verse, she acknowledged that He, by His presence, she will be able to see spiritual things, not only material things as we do with our material eyes. And so, she is asking here in this verse... yeah, she's saying that He is... previously she said that He is the transcendental eye, which she had acquired from many, many, many lifetimes. And here, in this verse, she's also saying that He is the axe by which the forest of material existence... the weapon, that is.
So, she is asking, or, yeah... she is making like a connection between woman and man, and spirit and matter. This is puruṣa and prakṛti. Puruṣa is explained in other places that puruṣa means the enjoyer or the predominant person, so to say. And Krishna is the Supreme Enjoyer, He is puruṣa, and all others are prakṛti, servants. So Krishna is, yeah... and but the thing is that... and then she's also saying like spirit and matter. Actually, the Supreme Spirit is the real Enjoyer, the real puruṣa, as Krishna, or His expansions, so to say. And both matter and the living entity, the spirit soul, they are also prakṛti. We hear from Bhagavad-gītā, seventh chapter, fourth verse: bhūmir āpo 'nalo vāyuḥ khaṁ mano buddhir eva ca ahaṅkāra itīyaṁ me bhinnā prakṛtir aṣṭadhā. "Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence and false ego—all together these eight separated material energies..." And then next verse: apareyam itas tv anyāṁ prakṛtiṁ viddhi me parām jīva-bhūtāṁ mahā-bāho yayedaṁ dhāryate jagat. "Besides this inferior nature, earth, water, fire, air, ether, there's a superior energy, to which all the living entities belong." And they are using, exploiting, the lower, the material nature. They are trying to enjoy this material nature.
But actually, they are... Krishna has three potencies: internal potency, external potency, and the marginal potency. The external potency is matter, and the marginal potency is the living entity. And they are potencies, and are therefore potent person. Krishna is actually having these potencies. So, the living entity is actually supposed to be prakṛti. But he is taking the role of... because of ignorance, and he wants to be the enjoyer in this world.
And this philosophy, or the understanding that people have, that everything is matter. I was also teacher here in Almvik when we had groups of school children. And then we went to Tekniska museet in Stockholm, and they had this exhibition in a special room. It was about chemistry. And above the door, it says, "Everything is atoms."
There is nothing else than that. There is no spirit, there is no... so everything, whatever you can see, perceive, that is matter, atoms. So, many people, they think of that. But these eight elements, especially five gross elements that we can perceive with our senses, we cannot see the mind, intelligence, but we can also understand it's there, by inference. We can understand that, "Ah, this person, he is doing this because of that," and so on, so we understand that there is intelligence there. But the gross we can perceive, like a physical, earthly things. And we can smell and there is also form, and there is a touch, and all these things.
So, if you think that everything is matter, and there are so many things going on, both with human beings and the animals, animals they are chasing their prey, and getting it, and eating it, and human beings they are building skyscrapers, and the scientists... so much activity going on. And so how can just this matter just do all these things? Earthly things, watery things, fiery things, and this is also, you can also think, in the beginning of movement there were some devotees made some play with how people can think of Big Bang creating this wonderful universe and also what's going on on earth planet, just by putting some materials, matter, dead matter.
So how can people think... there must be spirit, and that's actually what is driving everything. And everything is happening because of spirit, the spirit soul is there. And because our bodies are actually dead matter, and as soon as the soul is away from the body, it's not interesting at all. I mean, some physicians, they will cut it up and see the reason why the person died or something, so they are interested. And also when they learn how... when the physicians go to school, they learn about all these things and there is also some interest. But apart from that, there is no interest at all in a dead body. It's quite obnoxious. Starts to smell in a few days. I don't know how many days, but three days or something. Therefore, when a person dies, then the body is taken to a place where there is cold, so that it takes more time for the body to decompose.
But we should also not, what to say, defy the wonderful thing that this body is, as long as the soul is there, it's very important for self-realization, and even if you want to fulfill our material desires, the body is important.
So, there is prakṛti and puruṣa, and there is a soul and there is matter, spirit and matter. And so, this chapter is called "The Glories of Devotional Service". And, of course, the glories of devotional service is that you can understand and become... you understand Krishna. Bhaktyā mām abhijānāti yāvān yaś cāsmi tattvataḥ tato māṁ tattvato jñātvā viśate tad-anantarama. One can understand the Supreme Lord only by devotional service. And when one is fully conscious of the Supreme Lord by such devotion, one can enter into the kingdom of God. Devotional service, the glories of devotional service, is, of course, that we will understand Krishna, and when we understand Krishna then we will understand we will be detached from matter, detached from our body, detached from everything in this world, like this.
Yeah, so, and this, Prabhupāda is pointing out here that, in this material world, both the so-called man and so-called woman are imitating the real puruṣa. The so-called man... there is a story that there was one troubadour in Sweden, I don't know what's his name, one who sings songs. So he was in a place, restaurant or whatever in Stockholm, or some pub, and he was probably little drunk. So then he got hold of two beautiful ladies, and he brought them to his apartment. So he was, of course, expecting some nice exchange, but it happened so that they were actually not women, they were two men dressed as women. So he became so frustrated and he was taking up his knife to chase them away.
So, reality is like that, that we... when we are married, for example, we view the wife, or the wife views the husband as something special, but actually, we are not this body. And we are not even the mind. So, we have to get free from bodily relationships. Like also, the devotee here, she is praying for that in one of the verses, that she has been caught up in these bodily relationships, and she wants to, and what is needed is that one is purified from that. And we have this verse: sarvopādhi-vinirmuktaṁ tat-paratvena nirmalam hṛṣīkeṇa hṛṣīkeśa-sevanaṁ bhaktir ucyate. That bhakti means that one is using one's senses in the service of the Lord of the senses, of the Lord who is the master of the senses. And by such activity, then there are two side effects: that senses are purified and we are getting free from the upādhi, or designations. For example, that when we are free from this upādhi, we understand, "I am not a man, I am not Jonas Henriksson, I'm not this and that. I'm the one who play tennis, and I'm the one who... all these things."
Yeah, so, to get free from this upādhi, or designations, material designations. And we will get the real designations. By the mercy of the spiritual master and Krishna, we can be, so to say, reinstated in our original constitutional position as eternal servant of the Supreme Lord. Jīvera 'svarūpa' haya—kṛṣṇera 'nitya-dāsa'.
Yeah, so it is important, in order to have the drive for self-realization, you have the fire back that actually this material existence is not our life. It is something which is unwanted, and she is giving this understanding by her questions and like that. Okay, so somebody has some question or comment?
Yeah?
Somehow, I have been wondering... I'm not very learned, I haven't read so much, and if I read, I cannot remember, so my question is really simple, but I would like to have some illustrations, some something, something tangible: why do we need the body to get self-realization? In my understanding, the soul is realized.
So, if we wouldn't be in the material world, in this body, the soul would be realized, self-realized. It would be with Krishna, because it's part and parcel of Krishna, it cannot be without Krishna. Then, there is something missing from my thinking, and I would like you to fill that gap, between the body and soul and the necessity of...
The soul is pure, as you say, but still, the jīvātmā is, it's not the Paramātmā, but still, we have learned that the soul is very learned, actually. But this learning is covered. It's covered because of the desire to enjoy separate from Krishna, desire to be the puruṣa, the soul.
Who desires?
Soul.
Soul?
Yeah.
How come, if it's completely pure?
Ah, this is the question. This is the question that I usually give this example that, first of all, how do we come to material world, Prabhupāda says, Krishna knows, but it is very difficult to ascertain. But we understand that we are actually now in material world, so we have to get out of it. And another way to answer that is that Prabhupāda says, I think in a class in Australia, that if a man is walking together with his child, hand in hand, and then they see the amusement park with the, what is it called, go up and down and... roller coaster, and the child says, "Please, I want to test this, I want to go there." "No, no, it's not good for you, you will just vomit or something like that." But the child is insisting, he wants to go there. And the father philosophy is, "Yeah, he has to reach to the child," even if the child gets on the roller coaster, most of the time nothing happens really, really serious. So, we let the child go. And Prabhupāda says, "This is how it is. The living entity wants to enjoy separately from Krishna, and therefore He, Krishna, supplies material body."
And, actually, earlier in the Third Canto, in the chapter called "Kumaras and Creation", in the beginning there, Brahmā, before he started to populate the universe with the living entities, he started to create self-deception, we are cheating ourselves. This is created by Brahmā, so that the living entities, when they come, they will cheat themselves and they will understand that, "I am the body." But it's for the universe, it is something that Brahmā created before living entities come.
So, it is our own fault. Yeah, Brahmā did it, but it's also, of course, it's very mystical how the soul is connecting with the material body and world. We think that we are part of this world, or of the eight material elements. We think that we are also that. Like this, they say that everything is atoms. We think like that, that we are also atoms.
Only atoms.
But we, of course, we know because we are devotees, we understand that we are actually not. At least, we have some theoretical knowledge that we are, as you say, the soul is pure. And a very wonderful example Prabhupāda says, in one of the small books, is that just as water coming from the clouds down to earth, and when it's pure, when it's coming down, but when it touches the ground, as clayish water, then it becomes contaminated and dirty. But this dirty water, we can place in a purifying filter, you can filter it, and the water can become pure again. So in the same way, the pure soul comes out, when it comes from the spiritual world, but as soon as it touches the material world, it becomes contaminated. But that contaminated soul can take up a process of filtering away upādhi, and in this way, the pure soul is again there, in all glory, as it is, in relation to Krishna.
Yes, that makes sense. If the soul gets contaminated and needs to be purified, then this existence here...
So, that's why the body... the body is our prison, but at the same time, the body is also a means. If you use the senses of the body to serve Krishna, then the body is the means of getting purified, and getting away from this upādhi.
When we... when we realize that we are not actually meant to be here, how do we, um... like, for example, for you personally, when you realized really that you are not this body, and you are not from this world, and you are actually part and parcel of Krishna, and you are meant to be with Him, where does the motivation to stay here come from?
Motivation to stay back in the material world, or...
Mmh.
That is, you have got a mission, on the scale of spiritual master, Srila Prabhupāda, and we have to... we have to work. And...
Can you say that word again? 'You would...'
Yeah, we have to... we have to serve the mission of the spiritual master, to spread the service of Him. And so, you may have experienced coming to the spiritual world, but this is the place you are going to, so you want to look for... you have something to do here first, in this material world.
I see, and does it feel like you are doing it, this service here, for Krishna and for your spiritual master, because they, it's like service to them in the same way that you would serve them in the spiritual world? But now, we are just accepting...
Yeah, I mean, I'm not completely realized soul myself, so, but I have some theoretical knowledge of how it is.
No, theoretical, but what is your everyday experience? Ah, I understand that...
...I have only understood that the realized souls in Krishna consciousness are just very, very humble, and they never admit that, 'Yes, they have some direct connection with Krishna,' but then like, behind the lines, or between the lines, one can see that some who have served long, like Mahārāja and you and some others, there's certainly some spark which is different than for us neophytes. So...
Yeah, I mean, there are three kinds of devotee: uttama-adhikārī, madhyama-adhikārī, and kaniṣṭha-adhikārī. And the kaniṣṭha-adhikārī, beginner, he cannot see, you know, that there are those who are very advanced. But the madhyama-adhikārī, he can see, "Ah, this person seems to be very advanced." And so, madhyama-adhikārī... He sees four kinds of people: he sees Krishna, object of love, he makes friends with the devotees, and he preaches to the innocent, and he avoids the demon. So, this is... so madhyama-adhikārī, he, he may understand who is very advanced, you know. But actually, even the learned, you have to be very advanced in order to actually see who is who.
So...
But, yeah, you know, when we are new devotees, we cannot expect that we will understand exactly what will happen at the end, so to say. But sometimes Krishna gives a glimpse of that consciousness, so to say, to a sincere person. And therefore, he may understand something, but not everything.
Thank you. That was really, really sweet, and eye-opening, and heart-warming answer. The whole thing, I learned so much. Thank you. There is so much knowledge in, in living, in reading, in hearing... chanting. It's like there's, it's a different... I guess it's quite... Do you remember what it was to be without that, or without Krishna consciousness?
Yeah, yes. [laughter] It was hellish. [laughter] So many things in the mind, and, yeah. So, it is... it's wonderful that we have met the devotees. Actually, I said to one of my friends, who is not at all devotee, I said, "There must be some life, somewhere." And then, I found Krishna consciousness. And then I really found the life. Life, I mean, live, that we are still not... not yet.
Yeah, I agree. Something to taste.
Yeah.
Thank you. That was so sweet. Thank you. Thank you. Haribol.
Okay, Srila Prabhupāda kī jaya! Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam kī jaya! Haribol!