Being merciless and cruel I have …… my relatives and friends therefore like a person who has killed a Brahman I do not know to which planet I should go either after death or while breathing “ Daivam etai andritam vyapti “ Durga took birth from them because Devaki wore Durga devi in her womb Kamsa praise both Devaki and her husband. Asur are devoted to godess Durga Kali and so fore, Kamsa therefore truly astonished to appreciate the exalted position of his sister and brother-in-law, Durga is certainly not under the material nature because she herself is the controller of the law. Ordinary living beings are however controlled by these laws “ prakrteh kriyamanani gunaih karmani sarvasah ahankara-vimudhatma kartaham iti manyate” consequently none of us are allowed to live together for any long period, by speaking in this way Kamsa tried to pacify his sister and brother-in-law.
“ Om agyantimirandhsya ……”
Had to suffer for many many years in the hands of Kamsa , he stole away their freedom, he stole away their rights to kingdom and he even went to the extent of murdering their children. Off course we know this is all being done by the supreme divine will of God because not even a single blade of grass can move without the permission of Lord Shri Krishna and lord Shri Krishna is perfect “ Om purman adapurnamidam “ He is perfect and complete, what does it mean that He is complete? That means everything from the minutiae’s detail to the very very greatest manifestation, they are all thoroughly under the supervision and the knowledge the awareness of Krishna, He knows everything He knows everyone, everywhere at all times “ vedaham samatitani vartamanani carjuna bhavisyani ca bhutani mam tu veda na kascana “ Krishna says I know everything past present and future, I know every living being this is what it means that He is complete, that fact that He is perfect does give us real solos unless we understand that He is perfect and complete. Just like in the Bible it is said be perfect as your father in heaven, by surrendering to Krishna we can become perfect we can never become complete, that is the difference between the jivatma and the paramatma as part and parcel “ mamaivamso jiva-loke jiva-bhutah sanatanah manah-sasthanindriyani prakrti-sthani karsati” we have the same perfect qualities like Shri Krishna and we utilize our God given independence in the surrendered loving service of the Lord then due to our connection with the perfect we take on the qualities of the perfect, one who is surrendered to the Lord is perfect, one who simply executes the will of the Lord is perfect but we can never be complete that is what it is ment by “ acintya bhedahabehd tatva “ that we are simultaneously one and different than Krishna, we are by constitutional nature perfect but never complete “ nityam nityanam chetanas chetananam eko bhau nam “ you can never say that part is complete full of the whole is complete, so Krishna is complete and complete and in His completeness that means nothing is out side of Him. Have you ever wondered what does it mean when it says Krishna is complete, nothing is outside of Him, nothing for even the minutiae’s moment lava matra even a 12th of the second nothing anywhere is ever not within His conscious awareness and His supreme will is infallible that is what is meant by complete so when a devotee suffers like Vasudev and Devaki we can understand that Krishna has a divine plan “ mahatmanas tu mam partha daivim prakrtim asritahbhajanty ananya-manaso jnatva bhutadim avyayam “ those great devotees who give their lives to Me and worship Me with devotion they are always under the influence of My divine energy, they are not under the laws of material nature, a materialistic person who is not surrendering to the will of the Lord is simply under the influence of the laws of material nature which is conducted by the three modes and the interaction of those three modes Satva guna Rajur guna and tama guna are constantly bringing us happiness or distress pleasure or pain just like the weather winter and summer season they come and they go similarly pleasure pain honor dishonor distress theyall come and go but My devotee Krishna says is not disturb by these things he fixes his consciousness on what is permanent that is devotional service, such a person is under the influence of the internal energy that means whatever takes place in his life is not conducted by the laws of nature but its directly being executed by Krishna just like the greatest astrologer in all of India amongst astrologer is this one man from Bangalore, he is considered the highest authority of the Brighu samitha and I remember some of our devotees went to him and what he is you right down three questions before you come in, they come in with three questions in their hands he just looks in Brighu samitha not by his mystic powers but just by looking in Brighu samitha he tells them what is their questions and what is their answer before they even tell him and every devotee he comes and he says please understand whatever I tell you doesn’t apply to you as long as you are surrendering to Krishna, if you are surrendering to Krishna none of these influence have anything to do in your life if you don’t surrender to Krishna then this is what going to happen so Vaishnavas really there is no need for all these and what is that mean that means he is learned in the teachings of Bhagvat Gita “ deivim prakritim ashriyata “ Krishna says My devotees are under My divine potency “mayadhyaksena prakrtih suyate sa-caracaram hetunanena kaunteya jagad viparivartate” the materialistic are thoroughly under Krishna’s arrangements, the paramata in the heart knows every thought every word he sees every deed and he is giving them a karmic reaction and for a devotee the paramatma is watching but He is not simply putting them into the laws of karma He is personally supervising. What they need for purification or for those who appeared what they need for execution their mission and here we have Kamsa he was a great demon, when he saw the beautiful form of Shri Durga devi the child of his own sister he came to the realization that at this time that he had great mistake, ….. the omen of providence and it cause him to act sinfully but now he realized in his own mind that he was cheated not really that he was cheated but that he was cheated by his own envy and lust and now he is lamenting. Similarly in this material world even in today’s society when the asura class of man are defeated by material nature often times they become very humble they become very repentant but because of their asuric mentality as soon as things change they immediately forget their humility they forget their repentance and again they behave demonically and that is what we are about to read in the Bhagvatam, although Kamsa became almost like a devotee he was begging forgiveness, he was speaking all nice philosophy he was willing to not only release Devaki and Vasudev but give them support and all sorts of assistance he was actually dealing with them lovingly because he had been smashed by maya, Durga devi herself appeared and said you are doomed so he became very humble he admitted his mistake. For a materialistic person admit a mistake is a very difficult thing to do, we love to blamed everyone for our mistakes we hate to take credit for our mistakes, we love to take credit for what we have done or what we would like people to thing we have done although we haven’t done its painful to our heart to admit our mistakes to admit our faults to admit our shortcomings but Kamsa here such a proud arrogant and demoniac person he is being you could imagine seeing the Godess Durga what She is doing to him it is smashing his pride to such an extent this actually willing to admit that he is doing a mistake he is willing to admit that he is sinful and he is wrong. What is the difference between a devotee and a person who is not in the devotional consciousness ? when things change for the good a devotee remains humble remains grateful and a demon goes back to his old ways. We find in the birth of Lord shri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, Jagganath Mishra Saci Mata they were in a similar situation as Devaki and Vasudev they had one child after another, Kamsa did not come to kill but each one of them died during their infancy one after another year after year every time they had a child it died just after birth, so they began to worship Lord Narayan off course they always worshiped Lord Narayan but they were appealing Lord Narayan to bring a divine child into this world and what happened is this when child was born shri Vishwarup He was such a beautiful child, Saci devi and Jagganath Mishra felt so grateful to Lord Narayan that they increased their worship, just see the quality of their faith. First of all the average person if he is worshiping the Lord and his desire was being frustrated again and again he would give up the worship what is the use to the worship, we are worshiping Narayan our first child dies we are worshiping Narayan our second child dies our third child dies our forth child dies our fifth child dies our sixth child dies, how many of you continue worship Lord Narayan? A materialistic person would say who need this Narayan everyone around me is not worshiping and they are having children, my neighbour’s my friends my relatives they are not devotees and they are having all nice children I giving my life to Lord Narayan and worshiping, you understand in Navadeep dham no one was a devotee practically there was handful of devotees, there was Advaitacharya there was Shrivas thakur there was Mukunda they were younger they were not even existing that, there were just Advaitacharya and shrivas may be one or two others, all others were gross materialistic, I means gross they were following tancessism atheism and they were all having beautiful nice children, one after another after another and here practically every the only devotees in Navadeep they are worshiping Narayan and everyone one of his children is dying in infancy so it were been very easy for them to just go at the floored society. In Navadeep it was such a atheistic place it was filled with black magic and worshiper of various demigods for terrible material things, it was horrible everyone criticize the vaishnav that you people are crazy. Kolavecha Shridhar use to chant the holy names they use to use to criticize him condemned him think that what is this, what your God is doing for you, look what we have we worship the demigods look what we have you have nothing, such a faith! Jagganath Mishra and Saci Devi every time their child died they just humbled themselves and increased their worship to Lord Narayan, their faith was never shaken that is the quality of a devotee but then what happened, then they had the most beautiful child after so many years of alder frustration of all the desire they remain faithful and loyal to Lord Narayan and after all this they finally had a son such a beautiful wonderful son as Vishwarup. So a materialistic person he worship God when its not fulfilled he gives up his God and he tries to make some material arrangement, worshiping God just don’t work so I am going to make some other arrangements, that’s material consciousness and the other side of material consciousness is I will worship God when I am in need but then I am not in need anymore just don’t need God anymore, thankyou very much Haribol! I will see you when I need again, just like a doctor, how many people when they are feeling healthy and nice go to the doctor very few, people go when they are sick otherwise they don’t go to the doctor because they know they have to pay him, so people don’t want to worship God because worshiping God means sacrifice it means you have to pay some sacrifice so I am in desperate need then its worth it, when everything is going well no need Ah! So when Jagganath Mishra Saci Mata when they had their beautiful son Vishwarup who is the embodiment of all good quality he was effulgent healthy and everything a parent could possibly wanted a child what do they do, they were so thankful to Lord Narayan that they increased their worship they increased their puja in every possible way celebrating His mercy upon them, this is transcendental consciousness. Whatever happened weather greatest atrocities took place in their life, total frustration of their desires or weather the ultimate fulfillment of their desires they were unchanged, they were constantly with faith and devotion increasing their loyalty their worship to Lord Narayan this is a devotee. A materialistic person his faith is completely determined by his physical circumstances if the things go my way then yes Krishna you are very good if things do not go my way may be I should think of some other way of life, if things are not going right I worship Krishna in desperation but then one think they are right and no need. So here Devaki they are exhibiting very very divine quality, in happiness distress pleasure frustration or in success they are remaining always pure in heart always faithful and always in a mood of being a divine servant of the Lord but Kamsa we see in his frustration and fear how he is becoming very pious but what happens in the future as soon as again he feels there is a fear in his life all of his piety is throne away aside and again he adopts the same materialistic demoniac mentality, he retracts all of his forgiveness again puts Devaki and Vasudev in jail again waits for a child to kill, this is the difference between the demoniac kind mentality and a devotional mentality and it is a very very great lesson for all of us we have to be very careful. When Kamsa saw Durga Devi who is factually his own worship able Lord Kamsa was a devotee of Lord Shiva you know! You will go the Mathura today there is a place called Ranga Bhumi that is the place where the wrestling arena was, were Chanura and Mustika wrestled with Krishna just outside the gate as where kuvalayapida the great elephant was killed by Krishna, his name is Pipaleshwar Mahadev, Pipaleshwar Mahadev is a very very ancient Shiva linga which was personally worshiped by Lord Shiva and why did he worshiped Shiva for the death of Krishna, he was worshiping Shiva with great great fur were and very very opulent offerings praying to Shiva please kill Krishna, please help me to kill Krishna, similarly Ravan also worshiped Shiva to kill Ram. So Kamsa he knew the Vedas, he did not develop such mystic powers to be powerful like 10,000 elephants simply by weight lifting or by jogging or working out, he develop this great power by studying the Vedas and performing the mystic sacrifices ordained in the Vedas to gain this mystic powers by worshiping Shankar and by worshiping Durga Devi who he knew was the eternal consort of his worship able Lord Shiva so when he saw his own worship able Goddess born of Devaki you could imagine how much it shocked him, here he is torching Devaki and Vasudev year after year and killing their children and then from her womb comes supreme worship able object of his life, goddess Durga who is the wife the consort and the beloved of Lord Shiva who he worship day and night to fulfill all of his desires and who he gained all of his strength from, there was a very embracing situation for him My God! This lady I have been torching so much is the mother of Durga come for her womb, so in this way he was very astonished and shocked and very repentant begging forgiveness but even under this scene he was so blinded by envy and lust that he easily forgot the whole situation and again became demonic and again tried to kill the children of Devaki and again prosecuted them. When one becomes to much covered by the proud of material attachment ones commonsense for devotional service cannot remain, Krishna says in Gita “bhogaisvarya-prasaktanam
tayapahrta-cetasam vyavasayatmika buddh ihsamadhau na vidhiyate “ for those who are too much attached to material opulence and sense gratification the resolute determination for devotional service cannot take place. Kamsa is such an example, even his devotional service to Shiva and Durga he had no resolution his mind was simply being controlled by lust and envy and pride and although the truth was spoken to him directly by his own worship able Goddess who gave him personal Darshan his enviousness his fear his pride like a cloud covered over and he forgot even that, can you imagine such a scene Goddess Durga appearing in the sky effulgent like thousands of sun saying Kamsa I am the daughter of Vasudev and Devaki, why you are torchring them? you are such a fool you providence is to be killed by the other child is already born, he became like this, “ I am very sorry ! “ but he forgot even that darshan he forgot even those words because his own material desires own attachment was so prominent. So therefore material attachment is the greatest enemy because it disturbs our resolute determination to devotional service “vyavasayatmika buddhir
ekeha kuru-nandana bahu-sakha hy anantas ca buddhayo 'vyavasayinam” and this world to be Krishna consciousness you have to be determined you have to have resolute purpose in your life otherwise your mind and senses are going to be swept away by the illusory energy, you have to be fixed your faith have to be strong you have to determined to do anything or everything for the purpose of Krishna consciousness otherwise its not possible, there are too many forces against you that is why practically everyone in this world in the name of religion they are not really religious at all they are little pious, may they have kirtan may be they have bhajan puja but the resolute determination to surrender and to serve is not there therefore the advancement is very very minimum “vyavasayatmika buddhir ekeha kuru-nandana bahu-sakha hy anantas ca buddhayo 'vyavasayinam” Krishna says those who are on this path that I am giving they are resolute and purpose they are determined their aim is one, those who are not on this path are irresolute, their intelligence has many branch, this verse is very clearly being personified by Vasudev and by Kamsa, the first part of the verse vyavasayatmika buddhir ekeha kuru-nandana Vasudev is the perfect personification, those who are on this path they are resolute on purpose their determination and aim is one no matter what happens it doesn’t matter, they remain faithful loyal and go on with My service, but those who are not on this path Krishna says their intelligence has many branches that is Kamsa accepting and rejecting, acts like a demon Durga appears he becomes very devotional but because of his material attachments he cannot maintain that dignity of consciousness so we must understand material attachments for any thing for any one is the greatest obstacle for spiritual life and what is it mean material attachment? We say that we should be attached to the association of devotees, if you are not attached to the association of devotees you cannot be attached to Krishna, is that a material attachment, it depends on the association of devotees doing with you. Rupa goswami says accepting favorable devotional service rejecting unfavorable, that association which is helping us to come near and dear to the Lord that association we should be very attached to but any association even it is with so called guys of a devotee if it is distracting ones consciousness away from Krishna, away from the order of Guru then it should be abundant it should be rejected, it is a material attachment. Attachment between husband and wife if that relationship is helping you together serve the order of Guru then that attachment is very healthy and very good but as soon as that attachment become a stumbling block to devotional service it takes away all our resolute determination for Krishna consciousness that attachment would be our (32:22) what to speak of friends even children, we should be attached to nothing accept what is favorable for my devotional service and we should become detached from everything that is unfavorable who ever they are wherever they are whatever it is, that is Krishna’s warning and if you don’t follow this principal, if you are attached to sense gratification whatever form it come, if you are attached to material opulence for your own pleasure for your own aggrandizement then you cannot be determined for your devotional service and after Kamsa speaks all these words to Vasudev, what is Vasudev’s conclusion it is said in the Bhagvatam that he left he was a free man he was given all privileges all rights and left that prison with Kamsa’s support apologies and very very affectionate blessing but what was Vasudev thinking as he left “I don’t believe this man for anything, I have no trust and faith in this man because he materially attached because he does not control his senses “ Vasudev was thinking that you cannot ever trust anyone who is materially attached, who ever they are what ever they say because their minds are always in the turbulent ocean of the dualities of life and according to their sense perception they are covered over at any given moment, this was Vasudev’s realization, I cannot trust Kama ever because he is not resolute in purpose because he is attached to sense enjoyment this is very instructive, the only people we can really put our faith on are those people who are truly endeavoring to control their senses in Krishna’s service and therefore to take shelter of the lotus feet of such persons that is the greatest benediction that is the greatest wealth in our life and to develop and to aspire to develop these qualities that Vasudev and Devaki are so wonderfully exhibiting and to be very much careful on God to avoid the qualities of Kamsa that are so deeply buried within us that is the path of devotional service.
Is there any question? Yes
Q – not audible
A – You have to associate with the people who are determined otherwise there is no possibility. When Shrila Prabhupada came to the west all the determination all the enthusiasm all the faith came by seeing his faith and determination no body knew anything, by seeing his faith we develop faith by seeing his determination we develop determination. Material world is a very bewildering place unless you take help of someone who has faith and determination in Krishna consciousness there is no chance of our surviving spiritually but if we simply associate with look up to and receive this nourishment of faith from the great souls there would be no dangers in our life there can be no impediments in our life. Arjuna was completely bewildered from where did he get his determination from, from hearing from Krishna, faith comes from the process of hearing by hearing from people who actually have faith we develop faith that was the process in Bhagavat Gita.
Any other question’s
Q – not audible
A – we don’t have to judge, all you have to do is to go on with our devotional service and low of you attached if that thing is an impediment in your service and you cant give it up. In New Virndavan at one point so many of the devotees were getting automobiles and they were thinking that Oh! I am using this for Krishna’s service, so how do you know that you are actually attached to Krishna’s service or attached to enjoying the automobile? How do you know? When he says “ I don’t to use the automobile right! That means that anymore is your service to use it, if you are still attached that means you are attached to your sense gratification to what is giving you but if you are actually attached to the service rendering then if he says I don’t want you to use automobile, forget this! then you know you are detached so you accept things that are favorable for devotional service but as soon as Gurudev says I don’t want this anymore are you still attached to using it? That is the question then you will know. Money Oh! I have my job I am making money, I am not attached I am doing it for Krishna, when Guru says Oh! Give me some money then the question is are you attached to the money or are you attached to the service that can render, then you know do not worry my friend everything is revealed in time! what ever attachment are there in your life it would be tested today or tomorrow weather you are attached to service that is being facilitated through this particular possession or affiliation or weather you are simply attached to the thing enough it self, so you don’t have to judge you just go on with your service and Krishna will make everything clear if you are sincere. Most important thing is we have to utilize everything in this consciousness of Krishna Krishna’s service by sincerely chanting the holy name and associating with the people with this faith and detachment naturally our whole consciousness changes, those things that are so much attached to now are whole perception of those things changes into a spiritual view rather than a selfish view.
Q – is that a neophyte as well as the advanced devotee are ( not audible )
A – Krishna reveals Himself as you approach Him “ye yatha mam prapadyante tams tathaiva bhajamy aham
mama vartmanuvartante manusyah partha sarvasah “ to the degree we are holding back Krishna holds back, to the degree we are still attached to the material energy we are still under the control of material energy, to the degree we are falling at the lotus feet of Krishna we are under the direction of Krishna directly, a neophyte devotee is being very much influenced by both but Krishna is ultimately directing but a advanced devotee because he is calling out completely and singularly Krishna at every moment Krishna completely and singularly taking care of every moment “ye yatha mam prapadyante tams tathaiva bhajamy aham
mama vartmanuvartante manusyah partha sarvasah “ As you approach Me as you surrender to Me Krishna says I reward you accordingly…