VedaVyasa
Praneetha
The Mad Bhagavatam
Chapter 6
Retirement on the Advise of Brahmâ and Uddhava Addressed in Private
(The Yadu Dynasty Retires to Prabhāsa)
This chapter describes how Brahmā and other demigods, after offering prayers to Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, requested the Lord to return to His own abode and how Uddhava, anticipating separation from the Supreme Personality of Godhead, was very distressed and prayed to Śrī Kṛṣṇa that he might accompany Him on His return to that abode.
Desiring to see Śrī Kṛṣṇa in His humanlike form, which enchants all the worlds, the Gandharvas, Apsarās, Nāgas, Ṛṣis, Pitās, Vidyādharas, Kinnaras and other demigods, all headed by Brahmā, Śiva and Indra, arrived at the city of Dvārakā. Covering the body of Kṛṣṇa with flower garlands from the Nandana gardens of heaven, they praised Him with statements about His transcendental power and qualities.
All living entities, beginning with Brahmā, are subordinate to Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa creates the universe by empowering His expansion Mahā-Viṣṇu. Although Kṛṣṇa creates, maintains and destroys this world through His material energy, He remains transcendental to the material energy and perfectly self-satisfied. Even in the midst of His sixteen thousand queens, Lord Kṛṣṇa is undisturbed.
Performers of fruitive sacrifices and yogīs desiring mystic power contemplate the lotus feet of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa to attain their materialistic objectives. But the most elevated devotees, who desire liberation from the bondage of material work, lovingly contemplate the Lord's lotuslike feet because those feet are the fire that destroys all desires for sense gratification. One cannot actually purify the mind by ordinary worship, penance and other such processes. One can purify the mind contaminated by sense gratification only through mature faith in the mode of goodness, which arises by hearing the glories of Kṛṣṇa. Therefore, intelligent persons situated in the varṇāśrama system serve the two kinds of holy places: the nectarean rivers of the topics of Kṛṣṇa and the nectarean rivers flowing from the Lord's lotus feet.
By incarnating within the Yadu dynasty, Kṛṣṇa performed the highest welfare work for the entire universe by displaying His transcendental pastimes. Simply by hearing and chanting about these pastimes, pious persons in Kali-yuga can definitely cross over the ocean of material illusion. When the Lord had fulfilled the purpose of His descent and the Yadu dynasty was facing imminent destruction from the brāhmaṇas' curse, the Lord desired to wind up His pastimes. When Brahmā prayed to the lotus feet of Lord Kṛṣṇa for the deliverance of himself and all the other demigods, Śrī Kṛṣṇa revealed in His reply that after the destruction of the Yadu dynasty He would return to His own abode.
Observing terrible disturbances indicating the imminent destruction of the world, Lord Kṛṣṇa called together the wise members of the Yadu dynasty and reminded them of the brāhmaṇas' curse. The Lord convinced them to go to Prabhāsa-tīrtha, where they could save themselves by the performance of ritual bathing, charity, and so on. The Yadus, in obedience to Kṛṣṇa's desire, prepared to journey to Prabhāsa.
Upon seeing and hearing the Lord's conversation with the Yadu dynasty, Uddhava approached Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa in a secluded place, offered Him full obeisances and, with folded hands, expressed his inability to tolerate separation from the Lord. He begged Kṛṣṇa to carry him to His own abode.
If one tastes the nectar of Kṛṣṇa's pastimes with his ears, one loses all hankering for other things. Persons who engage constantly in Kṛṣṇa's service — while eating, sporting, sleeping, sitting, etc. — cannot tolerate separation from Kṛṣṇa. They honor all kinds of remnants from Śrī Kṛṣṇa and thus conquer the Lord's illusory energy. Peaceful members of the renounced order attain Brahmaloka after exhaustive and painful exertion, whereas the devotees of the Lord simply discuss Lord Kṛṣṇa among themselves, chant and remember His various pastimes and instructions, and thus automatically cross beyond the insurmountable material energy.
11.6.1
prajeśair āvṛto 'bhyagāt
(1) S'rî S'uka said: 'Then [after Nârada had left] did lord Brahmâ surrounded by his sons, the gods and the lords of man, arrive [in Dvârakâ] together with Lord Bhava [S'iva], for all living beings the controller favorable, who was accompanied by a host of ghostly beings.
11.6.2-4
indro marudbhir bhagavān
ādityā vasavo 'śvinau
ṛbhavo 'ńgiraso rudrā
gandharvāpsaraso nāgāḥ
ṛṣayaḥ pitaraś caiva
(2-4) Indra the powerful controller and his gods [the maruts], the sons of Aditi, the good of clarity [the Vasus], the protectors of health [the As'vins], the artists [the Ribhus], the descendants of Angirâ, the expansions of S'iva [the Rudras], the gods of the intellect [the Vis'vedevas], and the gods of commerce [the Sâdhyas], and other demigods; the singers and dancing girls of heaven [Gandharvas and Apsaras], the ones of excel [the Nâgas], the perfected [Siddhas] and the venerable [Câranas], the treasure keepers [Guhyakas], the seers [the Rishis], the forefathers [Pitas] as also the scientists [Vidyâdharas] and the ones of special talents [the Kinnaras] all together arrived in Dvârakâ eager to see Krishna, the Supreme Lord who removes the impurities everywhere in the universe and who with His transcendental form enchanting the entire human society spreads His fame throughout all the worlds.
The Personality of Godhead descends within the material world to assist the demigods in the cosmic management; thus the demigods can normally see such forms of the Lord as Upendra. However, here it is indicated that although accustomed to seeing various Viṣṇu expansions of the Lord, the demigods were specifically eager to see the most beautiful form of the Lord as Kṛṣṇa. Deha-dehi-vibhāgaś ca neśvare vidyate kvacit: there is no distinction between the Supreme Lord and His personal body. The jīva soul is different from his body, but the beautiful, transcendental form of the Lord is identical with the Lord in all respects.
11.6.5
samṛddhāyāḿ maharddhibhiḥ
vyacakṣatāvitṛptākṣāḥ
(5) In that resplendent city rich with a great abundance saw they with their hungry eyes Lord Krishna who is so wonderful to behold.
11.6.6
svargodyānopagair mālyaiś
chādayanto yudūttamam
gīrbhiś citra-padārthābhis
tuṣṭuvur jagad-īśvaram
(6) With covering Him, the best of the Yadus, with flower garlands brought from the gardens of heaven praised they Him, the Lord of the Living Being, expressing themselves in ideas and words of charm.
11.6.7
mumukṣubhiḥ karma-mayoru-pāśāt
(7) The gods said: 'We with our intelligence, senses, vital air, mind and words bow down to Your lotus feet, o Lord, which are meditated upon within the heart by those who united in the love of striving for liberation from the powerful bondage to karmic reactions.
According to Śrīla Śrīdhara Svāmī, the word sma in this verse indicates vismaya, "astonishment." The demigods were astonished that although great mystic yogīs are only able to contemplate the lotus feet of the Lord within their hearts, the demigods arriving in the city of Dvārakā were able to see before them the entire body of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Therefore the powerful demigods fell down like sticks before the Lord. Such full obeisances (called daṇḍavat, "like a stick") are described as follows:
dorbhyāḿ padābhyāḿ jānubhyām
praṇāmo 'ṣṭāńga īritaḥ
"The obeisances offered with eight limbs are made with the two arms, the two legs, the two knees, the chest, the head, the eyes, the mind and the power of speech.''The currents of material nature are very powerful, and one should therefore cling tightly to the lotus feet of the Lord. Otherwise, the violent waves of sense gratification and mental speculation will undoubtedly sweep one away from one's eternal, constitutional position as the loving servitor of the Supreme Lord, and one will then fall down into the stringent bondage described here as uru-pāśāt, "a very powerful illusory network."
11.6.8
tvaḿ māyayā tri-guṇayātmani durvibhāvyaḿ
(8) You, who by the material energy consisting of three modes, protects and destroys the manifestation with the inconcei11.6.8
vable of Yourself, are situated within the modes of that material nature, but You are by these modes not entangled in karmic activities at all, o You Unconquerable One, since You, the Unimpeded and Unimpeachable One, are always absorbed in Your happiness [see also B.G. 3: 22].The word durvibhāvyam is significant here. The ultimate cause of the creation, maintenance and annihilation of the material world is certainly inconceivable even for the greatest mundane scientists, who waste their lives in useless and fruitless speculation. Yet Mahā-Viṣṇu, who is the secondary expansion of an expansion of the Supreme Lord, Kṛṣṇa, sees the entire cosmos to be like an insignificant atom. So what hope is there for foolish so-called scientists who try to understand Kṛṣṇa by their ridiculous experimental power? Thus the word anavadya is used. No one can find fault or discrepancy in the body, character, activities or instructions of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The Lord is never materially ignorant; therefore He never exhibits cruelty, laziness, foolishness, blindness or material intoxication. Similarly, because the Lord is never polluted by material passion, He never exhibits material pride, lamentation, yearning or violence. And since the Lord is free from material goodness, He never attempts to peacefully enjoy the material world with a sublime materialistic mentality.
Lord Kṛṣṇa, as stated here (sve sukhe 'vyavahite 'bhirataḥ), is eternally busy, day and night, in His transcendental abode, relishing the inconceivable loving devotion of His innumerable associates. The Lord is being embraced and is embracing. He is joking and is hearing the joking of His loved ones. The Lord is walking through forests full of fruits and flowers, playing in the nectarean river Yamunā and taking part in His most confidential transcendental loving affairs with the cowherd girls of Vṛndāvana. These pastimes in Kṛṣṇaloka and on other Vaikuṇṭha planets are eternal, faultless and an ocean of spiritual happiness. The Lord never descends to the dry platform of relative material happiness. The infinite Personality of Godhead bas nothing to gain from anyone; thus fruitive activity cannot possibly exist within the Lord.
11.6.9
śuddhir nṛṇāḿ na tu tatheḍya durāśayānāḿ
vidyā-śrutādhyayana-dāna-tapaḥ-kriyābhiḥ
sattvātmanām ṛṣabha te yaśasi pravṛddha-
sac-chraddhayā śravaṇa-sambhṛtayā yathā syāt
(9) O Worshipable One, the purification of those persons who have a contaminated consciousness is not as much brought about by incantations, respecting injunctions, study of the scriptures, charity, penances and rituals, as by the faithful listening to the greatest of souls who situated in goodness have fully matured in Your transcendental glories [see also 4.29: 36-38].
11.6.10
syān nas tavāńghrir aśubhāśaya-dhūmaketuḥ
yaḥ sātvataiḥ sama-vibhūtaya ātmavadbhir
vyūhe 'rcitaḥ savanaśaḥ svar-atikramāya
(10) May there for us be the lotus feet, the fire that annihilates our inauspicious mentality and by the sages desiring the real benefit is carried in their appeased hearts, the fire that by the truthful of self-control is carried for gaining a likewise opulence; it is by worshiping three times a day Your forms [of soul, ego, mind and intelligence, the catur-vyûha] that one reaches beyond the heavens [see also 11.5: 34].
11.6.11
(11) They [Your feet] are meditated upon by the ones who, having folded their hands, pour the ghee into the fire of sacrifice in the [nirukta] process of understanding the three Vedas; they are meditated upon by the yogapracticioners who, inquisitive about Your [yoga-]mâyâ, are united in the realization of the True Self and [even more] perfectly are they worshiped by the elderly, exemplary devotees [see uttama and 11.2: 45-47].
The words ātma-māyāḿ jijñāsubhiḥ are significant in this verse. The mystic yogīs (adhyātma-yoga uta yogibhiḥ) are eager to acquire knowledge of the Lord's mystic potencies, whereas the pure devotees (parama-bhāgavataiḥ) are eager to cross beyond the kingdom of illusion so that they can serve Lord Kṛṣṇa's lotus feet in pure loving ecstasy. In any case, everyone is interested in the potency of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The atheistic material scientists are also fascinated by the external material potency of the Lord, and the gross sense gratifiers are attracted by the physical body, which is also ātma-māyā, or an expansion of the Lord's potency. Although all of the Lord's potencies are qualitatively one with the Lord, and therefore with each other, the blissful spiritual potency is nevertheless supreme because it establishes relationships between the Lord and the pure living entities on the platform of eternal happiness. Every living entity is originally a loving servitor of the Lord, and the spiritual energy of the Lord engages the living entity in his pure constitutional position beyond illusion.
Our dreaming and waking experiences are both activities of the mind; however, the activities we perform while awake are more valuable because they establish us in our permanent situation. Similarly, at every moment every living entity is experiencing one of the innumerable potencies of the Supreme Lord. However, the experience of the spiritual potency is more significant because it establishes the living entity in his eternal, constitutional position as a faithful servitor of the Personality of Godhead.
The demigods are glorifying the Lord's lotus feet because they are personally very eager to be purified by contact with those feet (tavāńghrir asmākam aśubhāśaya-dhūmaketuḥ syāt). When a sincere devotee eagerly desires to attain the shelter of the Lord's lotus feet, the Lord brings him to His personal abode, just as the demigods were brought to Dvārakā by Lord Kṛṣṇa's arrangement.
11.6.12
paryuṣṭayā tava vibho vana-mālayeyaḿ
saḿspārdhinī bhagavatī pratipatnī-vac chrīḥ
bhūyāt sadāńghrir aśubhāśaya-dhūmaketuḥ
(12) S'rî, Your Lordship's consort, is with our withered flower garland for You, o Almighty One, in this feeling as challenged as a jealous co-wife because You accept our offering as being properly brought [see also B.G. 9: 26]; may there always be the lotusfeet, the fire of the destruction of our impure desires!
11.6.13
(13) Your feet that like a flag decorating a flagpole with three mighty steps [defeat the possessiveness and bring down the water of the Ganges] in each of the three worlds [see 8.20] create fear and fearlessness among the Asuras and the godly their respective armies. For the saintly are they there for the attainment of heaven and for the envious are they there for just the opposite, o Most Powerful One. May these feet, o Supreme Lord, free us who worship You from our sins.
11.6.14
brahmādayas tanu-bhṛto mithur ardyamānāḥ
(14) As oxen bound [by the rope] through the nose do Brahmâ and all the other embodied beings have their existence, in which they being controlled by the Time struggle with each other. May the lotus feet of You, the Supreme Personality in the beyond of both the material nature ànd the individual person, for us spread the transcendental fortune [compare 1.13: 42, 6.3: 12].
11.6.15
asyāsi hetur udaya-sthiti-saḿyamānām
so 'yaḿ tri-ṇābhir akhilāpacaye pravṛttaḥ
(15) You are the cause of this creation, maintenance and annihilation, the cause of the unseen, the individual soul and the greater of the manifest reality. They say that You, this very same personality, are the factor of time controlling all who appears as a threefold wheel, that You are the Supreme Personality who in the form of Time uninterrupted in Your flow effects the diminution of everything [*].
The word gabhīra-rayaḥ, or "imperceptible speed and power," is significant. We observe that by the laws of nature all material things, including our own bodies, gradually disintegrate. Although we can perceive the long-term results of this aging process, we cannot experience the process itself. For example, no one can feel how his hair or fingernails are growing. We perceive the cumulative result of their growth, but from moment to moment we cannot experience it. Similarly, a house gradually decays until it is demolished. From moment to moment we cannot perceive exactly how this is happening, but in the course of longer intervals of time we can actually see the deterioration of the house. In other words, we can experience the results or manifestations of aging and deterioration, but as it is taking place the process itself is imperceptible. This is the wonderful potency of the Supreme Personality of Godhead in His form of time.
The word tri-ṇābhiḥ indicates that according to astrological calculation of the sun's movements, the year can be divided into three sections: those represented by Aries, Taurus, Gemini and Cancer; Leo, Virgo, Libra and Scorpio; and Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces.
The word uttama-pūruṣa, or puruṣottama, is explained in Bhagavad-gītā (15.18):
yasmāt kṣaram atīto 'ham
akṣarād api cottamaḥ
prathitaḥ puruṣottamaḥ
"Because I am transcendental, beyond both the fallible and the infallible, and because I am the greatest, I am celebrated both in the world and in the Vedas as that Supreme Person."11.6.16
tvattaḥ pumān samadhigamya yayāsya vīryaḿ
(16) The masculine [of Mahâ-Vishnu] that from You [as father Time] acquires the potent seed of this creation, impregnates the greater of matter [mahat-tattva]. Therefrom generates He whose semen is never wasted, joined with that same nature from the Self - just as an ordinary fetus is produced - the golden primeval egg of the universe endowed with its [seven] outer layers [see kosha].
11.6.17
(17) With that are You of everything mobile and stationary the original Controller, because You Yourself o Master of the Senses, in Your activities are never affected by the objects of the senses that manifested because of the operating modes of nature, while others, acting on their own account, live in fear because of them [see also B.G. 16: 23-24].
11.6.18
yasyendriyaḿ vimathituḿ karaṇair na vibhvyaḥ
(18) The sixteen thousand [of Your wives] were so enchanting the moments when they, showing their feelings with their eyebrows, smiles and glances, launched the arrows of Cupid. But with their messages and advances of conjugal love, were they by all their devices not able to perplex Your senses [see also 1.11: 36].
11.6.19
ānuśravaḿ śrutibhir ańghri-jam ańga-sańgais
tīrtha-dvayaḿ śuci-ṣadas ta upaspṛśanti
(19) The full rivers of Your nectarean topics and the rivers resulting from the bathing of Your feet are able to destroy all contamination of the three worlds. Those who strive for purification and want to find association approach [You therefore] in two ways, namely by making their ears listen to the stories offered by the tradition and by bringing their bodies in contact with [the waters] that flow from Your feet.'
11.6.20
praṇamyāmbaram āśritaḥ
(20) The honorable son of Vyâsa [S'uka] said: 'Along with S'iva and the demigods thus praising Govinda, the Lord, offered he who commands the hundreds [of sages, Brahmâ], from his position in the sky, his obeisances.
11.6.21
śrī-brahmovāca
bhūmer bhārāvatārāya
tvam asmābhir aśeṣātman
tat tathaivopapāditam
(21) S'rî Brahmâ said: 'O Lord, we requested You previously to diminish the burden of the earth. O Unlimited Soul, You have fulfilled that request the way we asked it.
11.6.22
dharmaś ca sthāpitaḥ satsu
(22) Having established the principles of dharma among the pious and among the see kers of truth is it indeed Your glory by You spread in all directions, which removes the contamination of all the worlds.
11.6.23
(23) Descending in the Yadu dynasty have You, for the benefit of the universe assuming a form, with magnanimous deeds performed incomparable activities.
11.6.24
śṛṇvantaḥ kīrtayantaś ca
(24) O Lord, those saintly souls who in the age of Kali hear and chant about Your activities, will easily cross over the darkness [see also 10.14].
Unfortunately, in Kali-yuga many persons are not attracted to the authorized Vedic literatures. Minimizing the transcendental process of hearing and chanting the glories of the Personality of Godhead, they prefer to listen to useless and whimsical vibrations on the radio and television, in newspapers and magazines, and so on. Rather than hear about Kṛṣṇa from the bona fide spiritual master, they endlessly give their own opinions about everything, until they are dragged away by the force of time. After studying the temporary, limited forms of the material world, they impatiently conclude that the Absolute Truth is formless. Such persons are actually worshiping Kṛṣṇa's illusory energy, māyā, who has been authorized to kick their stubborn heads. If instead people hear directly about Kṛṣṇa from the bona fide sources, they will very easily solve all the problems of their lives. In Kali-yuga people are constantly suffering from many psychological, social, economic, historical, political and existential problems. But all these nightmarish problems can be removed as soon as one awakens to the transcendental reality of the Personality of Godhead, who is eternal, full of bliss and knowledge and beyond the bewildering manifestations of the material energy. The Lord appears within this universe so that people can observe, hear about and glorify His actual activities. In this difficult age of Kali we should all seriously take advantage of this opportunity.
11.6.25
śarac-chataḿ vyatīyāya
(25) O Supreme Personality, since Your descent in the Yadu-vams'a have one hundred and twenty-five autumns passed, o Master.
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