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atma—body; jaya—wife; suta—son; agara—palace; pasu—horses and elephants; dravina—treasury house; bandhusu—unto friends and relatives; rajye—in the kingdom; ca—also; avikale—without being disturbed; nityam—constant; virudham—deep-rooted; mamatam—affinity; jahau—gave up.

Maharaja Pariksit, as a result of his wholehearted attraction for Lord Krsna, was able to give up all deep-rooted affection for his personal body, his wife, his children, his palace, his animals like horses and elephants, his treasury house, his friends and relatives, and his undisputed kingdom.

To become liberated means to become free from dehatma-buddhi, the illusory attachment for personal bodily coverings and everything connected with the body, namely wife, children and all other entanglements. One selects a wife for bodily comforts, and the result is children. For wife and children one requires a dwelling place, and as such a residential house is also necessary. Animals like horses, elephants, cows and dogs are all household animals, and a householder has to keep them as household paraphernalia. In modern civilization the horses and elephants have been replaced by cars and conveyances with considerable horsepower. To maintain all the household affairs, one has to increase the bank balance and be careful about the treasury house, and in order to display the opulence of material assets, one has to keep good relations with friends and relatives, as well as become very careful about maintaining the status quo. This is called material civilization of material attachment. Devotion for Lord Krsna means negation of all material attachments as detailed above. By the grace of Lord Krsna, Maharaja Pariksit was awarded all material amenities and an undisputed kingdom in which to enjoy the undisturbed position of king, but by the grace of the Lord he was able to give up all connections with material attachment. That is the position of a pure devotee. Maharaja Pariksit, due to his natural affection for Lord Krsna as a devotee of the Lord, was always executing his royal duties on behalf of the Lord, and as a responsible king of the world he was always careful to see that the influence of Kali would not enter his kingdom. A devotee of the Lord never thinks of his household paraphernalia as his own, but surrenders everything for the service of the Lord. Thereby living entities under a devotee’s care get the opportunity for God realization by the management of a devotee-master.

Attachment for household paraphernalia and for Lord Krsna go poorly together. One attachment is the path of darkness, and the other attachment is the path of light. Where there is light, there is no darkness, and where there is darkness, there is no light. But an expert devotee can turn everything to the path of light by an attitude of service to the Lord, and the best example here is the Pandavas. Maharaja Yudhisthira and householders like him can turn everything to light by dovetailing so-called material assets in the service of the Lord, but one who is not trained or is unable to turn everything to the service of the Lord (nirbandhah krsna-sambandhe) must give up all material connections before he can be fit to hear and chant the glories of the Lord, or in other words, one who has seriously heard Srimad-Bhagavatam for even one day, like Maharaja Pariksit, from a fit personality like Sukadeva Gosvami, may be able to lose all affinity for material things. There is no utility simply in imitating Maharaja Pariksit and hearing Bhagavatam from professional men, even for seven hundred years. To take Srimad-Bhagavatam as a means of maintaining family expenditure is the grossest type of namaparadha offense at the feet of the Lord (sarva-subha-kriya-samyam api pramadah).

SB2.4.3-4

TEXTS 3–4

papraccha cemam evartham

yan mam prcchatha sattamah

krsnanubhava-sravane

sraddadhano maha-manah

samstham vijnaya sannyasya

karma trai-vargikam ca yat

vasudeve bhagavati

atma-bhavam drdham gatah

papraccha—asked; ca—also; imam—this; eva—exactly like; artham—purpose; yat—that; mam—unto me; prcchatha—you are asking; sattamah—O great sages; krsna-anubhava—rapt in thought of Krsna; sravane—in hearing; sraddadhanah—full of faith; maha-manah—the great soul; samstham—death; vijnaya—being informed; sannyasya—renouncing; karma—fruitive activities; trai-vargikam—the three principles religion, economic development and sense gratification; ca—also; yat—what it may be; vasudeve—unto Lord Krsna; bhagavati—the Personality of Godhead; atma-bhavam—attraction of love; drdham—firmly fixed; gatah—achieved.

O great sages, the great soul Maharaja Pariksit, constantly rapt in thought of Lord Krsna, knowing well of his imminent death, renounced all sorts of fruitive activities, namely acts of religion, economic development and sense gratification, and thus fixed himself firmly in his natural love for Krsna and asked all these questions, exactly as you are asking me.

The three activities of religion, economic development and sense gratification are generally attractive for conditioned souls struggling for existence in the material world. Such regulated activities prescribed in the Vedas are called the karma-kandiya conception of life, and householders are generally recommended to follow the rules just to enjoy material prosperity both in this life and in the next. Most people are attracted by such activities. Even in the activities of their modern godless civilization, people are more concerned with economic development and sense gratification without any religious sentiments. As a great emperor of the world, Maharaja Pariksit had to observe such regulations of the Vedic karma-kandiya section, but by his slight association with Sukadeva Gosvami he could perfectly understand that Lord Krsna, the Absolute Personality of Godhead (Vasudeva), for whom he had a natural love since his birth, is everything, and thus he fixed his mind firmly upon Him, renouncing all modes of Vedic karma-kandiya activities. This perfectional stage is attained by a jnani after many, many births. The jnanis, or the empiric philosophers endeavoring for liberation, are thousands of times better than the fruitive workers, and out of hundreds of thousands of such jnanis one is liberated factually. And out of hundreds of thousands of such liberated persons, even one person is rarely found who can firmly fix his mind unto the lotus feet of Lord Sri Krsna, as declared by the Lord Himself in the Bhagavad-gita (7.19). Maharaja Pariksit is specially qualified with the word maha-manah, which puts him on an equal level with the mahatmas described in the Bhagavad-gita. In the later age also there have been many mahatmas of this type, and they also gave up all karma-kandiya conceptions of life’ solely and wholly depending on the Supreme Personality of Godhead Krsna. Lord Caitanya, who is Lord Krsna Himself, taught us in His Siksastaka (8):

aslisya va pada-ratam pinastu mam
adarsanan marma-hatam karotu va
yatha tatha va vidadhatu lampato
mat-prana-nathas tu sa eva naparah

“Lord Krsna, who is the lover of many devotees (women), may embrace this fully surrendered maidservant or may trample me with His feet, or He may render me brokenhearted by not being present before me for a long duration of time, but still He is nothing less than the Absolute Lord of my heart.”

Srila Rupa Gosvami spoke thus:

viracaya mayi dandam dina-bandho dayami va
gatir iha na bhavattah kacid anya mamasti
nipatatu sata-koti-nirbharam va navambhah
tad api kila-payodah stuyate catakena

“O Lord of the poor, do what you like with me, give me either mercy or punishment, but in this world I have none to look to except Your Lordship. The cataka bird always prays for the cloud, regardless of whether it showers rains or throws a thunderbolt.”

Srila Madhavendra Puri, the grand-spiritual master of Lord Caitanya, took leave of all karma-kandiya obligations in the following words:

sandhya-vandana bhadram astu bhavato bhoh snana tubhyam namo
bho devah pitaras ca tarpana-vidhau naham ksamah ksamyatam
yatra kvapi nisadya yadava-kulottamasya kamsa-dvisah
smaram smaram agham harami tad alam manye kim anyena me

“O my evening prayer, all good unto you. O my morning bath, I bid you good-bye. O demigods and forefathers, please excuse me. I am unable to perform any more offerings for your pleasure. Now I have decided to free myself from all reactions to sins simply by remembering anywhere and everywhere the great descendant of Yadu and the great enemy of Kamsa [Lord Krsna]. I think that this is sufficient for me. So what is the use of further endeavors?”

Srila Madhavendra Puri said further:

mugdham mam nigadantu niti-nipuna bhrantam muhur vaidikah
mandam bandhava-sancaya jada-dhiyam muktadarah sodarah
unmattam dhanino viveka-caturah kamam maha-dambhikam
moktum na ksamate manag api mano govinda-pada-sprham

“Let the sharp moralist accuse me of being illusioned; I do not mind. Experts in Vedic activities may slander me as being misled, friends and relatives may call me frustrated, my brothers may call me a fool, the wealthy mammonites may point me out as mad, and the learned philosophers may assert that I am much too proud; still my mind does not budge an inch from the determination to serve the lotus feet of Govinda, though I be unable to do it.”

And also Prahlada Maharaja said:

dharmartha-kama iti yo ’bhihitas trivarga
iksa trayi naya-damau vividha ca varta
manye tad etad akhilam nigamasya satyam
svatmarpanam sva-suhrdah paramasya pumsah

“Religion, economic development and sense gratification are celebrated as three means of attaining the path of salvation. Of these, iksa trayi especially, i.e., knowledge of the self, knowledge of fruitive acts and logic and also politics and economics, are different means of livelihood. All these are different subjects of Vedic education, and therefore I consider them temporary engagements. On the other hand, surrendering unto the Supreme Lord Visnu is a factual gain in life, and I consider it the ultimate truth.” (Bhag. 7.6.26)

The whole matter is concluded in the Bhagavad-gita (2.41) as vyavasayatmika buddhih, or the absolute path of perfection. Sri Baladeva Vidyabhusana, a great Vaisnava scholar, defines this as bhagavad-arcana-rupaika-niskama-karmabhir visuddha-cittah—accepting transcendental loving service to the Lord as the prime duty, free from fruitive reaction.

So Maharaja Pariksit was perfectly right when he firmly accepted the lotus feet of Lord Krsna, renouncing all karma-kandiya conceptions of life.

SB2.4.5

TEXT 5

rajovaca

samicinam vaco brahman

sarva-jnasya tavanagha

tamo visiryate mahyam

hareh kathayatah katham

raja uvaca—the King said; samicinam—perfectly right; vacah—speeches; brahman—O learned brahmana; sarva-jnasya—one who knows all; tava—your; anagha—without any contamination; tamah—the darkness of ignorance; visiryate—gradually disappearing; mahyam—unto me; hareh—of the Lord; kathayatah—as you are speaking; katham—topics.

Maharaja Pariksit said: O learned brahmana, you know everything because you are without material contamination. Therefore whatever you have spoken to me appears perfectly right. Your speeches are gradually destroying the darkness of my ignorance, for you are narrating the topics of the Lord.

The practical experience of Maharaja Pariksit is disclosed herein, revealing that transcendental topics of the Lord act like injections when received by the sincere devotee from a person who is perfectly uncontaminated by material tinges. In other words, reception of the messages of Srimad-Bhagavatam from professional men, heard by a karma-kandiya audience, never acts miraculously as stated here. Devotional hearing of the messages of the Lord is not like hearing ordinary topics; therefore the action will be felt by the sincere hearer by experience of the gradual disappearance of ignorance.

yasya deve para bhaktir
yatha deve tatha gurau
tasyaite kathita hy arthah
prakasante mahatmanah

[SU 6.23]

When a hungry man is given food to eat, he feels satiation of hunger and the pleasure of dining simultaneously. Thus he does not have to ask whether he has actually been fed or not. The crucial test of hearing Srimad-Bhagavatam is that one should get positive enlightenment by such an act.

yathedam srjate visvam

durvibhavyam adhisvaraih

bhuyah—again; eva—also; vivitsami—I wish to learn; bhagavan—the Personality of Godhead; atma—personal; mayaya—by the energies; yatha—as; idam—this phenomenal world; srjate—does create; visvam—universe; durvibhavyam—inconceivable; adhisvaraih—by the great demigods.

I beg to know from you how the Personality of Godhead, by His personal energies, creates these phenomenal universes as they are, which are inconceivable even to the great demigods.

In every inquisitive mind the important question of the creation of the phenomenal world arises, and therefore for a personality like Maharaja Pariksit, who was to know all the activities of the Lord from his spiritual master, such an inquiry is not uncommon. For every unknown thing, we have to learn and inquire from a learned personality. The question of creation is also one of such inquiries to be made to the right person. The spiritual master, therefore, must be one who is sama jna, as stated hereinbefore in connection with Sukadeva Gosvami. Thus all inquiries on God which are unknown to the disciple may be made from the qualified spiritual master, and here the practical example is set by Maharaja Pariksit. It was, however, already known to Maharaja Pariksit that everything we see is born out of the energy of the Lord, as we have all learned in the very beginning of Srimad-Bhagavatam (janmady asya yatah [Bhag. 1.1.1]). So Maharaja Pariksit wanted to know the process of creation. The origin of creation was known to him; otherwise he would not have inquired how the Personality of Godhead, by His different energies, creates this phenomenal world. The common man also knows that the creation is made by some creator and is not created automatically. We have no experience in the practical world that a thing is created automatically. Foolish people say that the creative energy is independent and acts automatically, as electrical energy works. But the intelligent man knows that even the electrical energy is generated by an expert engineer in the localized powerhouse, and thus the energy is distributed everywhere under the resident engineer’s supervision. The Lord’s supervision in connection with creation is mentioned even in the Bhagavad-gita (9.10), and it is clearly said there that material energy is a manifestation of one of many such energies of the Supreme (parasya saktir vividhaiva sruyate). An inexperienced boy may be struck with wonder by seeing the impersonal actions of electronics or many other wonderful things conducted by electrical energy, but an experienced man knows that behind the action is a living man who creates such energy. Similarly the so-called scholars and philosophers of the world may, by mental speculation, present so many utopian theories about the impersonal creation of the universe, but an intelligent devotee of the Lord, by studying the Bhagavad-gita, can know that behind the creation is the hand of the Supreme Lord, just as in the generating electrical powerhouse there is the resident engineer. The research scholar finds out the cause and the effect of everything, but research scholars as great as Brahma, Siva, Indra and many other demigods are sometimes bewildered by seeing the wonderful creative energy of the Lord, so what to speak of the tiny mundane scholars dealing in petty things. As there are differences in the living conditions of different planets of the universe, and as one planet is superior to others, the brains of the living entities in those respective planets are also of different categorical values. As stated in the Bhagavad-gita, one can compare the long duration of life of the inhabitants of Brahma’s planet, which is inconceivable to the inhabitants of this planet earth, to the categorical value of the brain of Brahmaji, also inconceivable to any great scientist of this planet. And with such high brain power, even Brahmaji has described in his great samhita (Brahma-samhita 5.1) as follows:

isvarah paramah krsnah
sac-cid-ananda-vigrahah
anadir adir govindah
sarva-karana-karanam

“There are many personalities possessing the qualities of Bhagavan, but Krsna is the supreme because none can excel Him. He is the Supreme Person, and His body is eternal, full of knowledge and bliss. He is the primeval Lord Govinda and the cause of all causes.”

Brahmaji admits Lord Krsna to be the supreme cause of all causes. But persons with tiny brains within this petty planet earth think of the Lord as one of them. Thus when the Lord says in the Bhagavad-gita that He (Lord Krsna) is all in all, the speculative philosophers and the mundane wranglers deride Him, and the Lord regretfully says:

avajananti mam mudha
manusim tanum asritam
param bhavam ajananto
mama bhuta-mahesvaram

“Fools deride Me when I descend in the human form. They do not know My transcendental nature and My supreme dominion over all that be.” (Bg. 9.11) Brahma and Siva (and what to speak of other demigods) are bhutas, or powerful created demigods who manage universal affairs, much like ministers appointed by a king. The ministers may be isvaras, or controllers, but the Supreme Lord is mahesvara, or the creator of the controllers. Persons with a poor fund of knowledge do not know this, and therefore they have the audacity to deride Him because He comes before us by His causeless mercy occasionally as a human being. The Lord is not like a human being. He is sac-cid-ananda-vigraha [Bs. 5.1], or the Absolute Personality of Godhead, and there is no difference between His body and His soul. He is both the power and the powerful.

Maharaja Pariksit did not ask his spiritual master, Sukadeva Gosvami, to narrate Lord Krsna’s pastimes in Vrndavana; he wanted to hear first about the creation of the Lord. Sukadeva Gosvami did not say that the King should hear about the direct transcendental pastimes of the Lord. The time was very short, and naturally Sukadeva Gosvami could have gone directly to the Tenth Canto to make a shortcut of the whole thing, as generally done by the professional reciters. But neither the King nor the great speaker of Srimad-Bhagavatam jumped up like the organizers of Bhagavatam; both of them proceeded systematically, so that both future readers and hearers might take lessons from the example of the procedure of reciting Srimad-Bhagavatam. Those who are in control of the external energy of the Lord, or in other words those who are in the material world, must first of all know how the external energy of the Lord is working under the direction of the Supreme Personality, and afterwards one may try to enter into the activities of His internal energy. The mundaners are mostly worshipers of Durga-devi, the external energy of Krsna, but they do not know that Durga-devi is but the shadow energy of the Lord. Behind her astonishing display of material workings is the direction of the Lord, as confirmed in the Bhagavad-gita (9.10). The Brahma-samhita affirms that Durga-sakti is working by the direction of Govinda, and without His sanction the powerful Durga-sakti cannot move even a blade of grass. Therefore the neophyte devotee, instead of jumping at once to the platform of transcendental pastimes presented by the internal energy of the Lord, may know how great the Supreme Lord is by inquiring about the process of His creative energy. In the Caitanya-caritamrta also, descriptions of the creative energy and the Lord’s hand in it are explained, and the author of Caitanya-caritamrta has warned the neophyte devotees to be seriously on guard against the pitfall of neglecting knowledge about Krsna in regard to how great He is. Only when one knows Lord Krsna’s greatness can one firmly put one’s unflinching faith in Him; otherwise, like the common man, even the great leaders of men will mistake Lord Krsna for one of the many demigods, or a historical personality, or a myth only. The transcendental pastimes of the Lord in Vrndavana, or even at Dvaraka, are relishable for persons who have already qualified themselves in advanced spiritual techniques, and the common man may be able to attain to such a plane by the gradual process of service and inquiries, as we shall see in the behavior of Maharaja Pariksit.

SB2.4.7

TEXT 7

yatha gopayati vibhur

yatha samyacchate punah

yam yam saktim upasritya

puru-saktih parah puman

atmanam kridayan kridan

karoti vikaroti ca

yatha—as; gopayati—maintains; vibhuh—the great; yatha—as; samyacchate—winds up; punah—again; yam yam—as; saktim—energies; upasritya—by employing; puru-saktih—the all-powerful; parah—the Supreme; puman—Personality of Godhead; atmanam—plenary expansion; kridayan—having engaged them; kridan—as also personally being engaged; karoti—does them; vikaroti—and causes to be done; ca—and.

Kindly describe how the Supreme Lord, who is all-powerful, engages His different energies and different expansions in maintaining and again winding up the phenomenal world in the sporting spirit of a player.

In the Katha Upanisad (2.2.13) the Supreme Lord is described as the chief eternal being amongst all other eternal individual beings (nityo nityanam cetanas cetananam) and the one Supreme Lord who maintains innumerable other individual living beings (eko bahunam yo vidadhati kaman). So all living entities, both in the conditioned state and in the liberated state, are maintained by the Almighty Supreme Lord. Such maintenance is effected by the Lord through His different expansions of Self and three principal energies, namely the internal, external and marginal energies. The living entities are His marginal energies, and some of them, in the confidence of the Lord, are entrusted with the work of creation also, as are Brahma, Marici, etc., and the acts of creation are inspired by the Lord unto them (tene brahma hrda). The external energy (maya) is also impregnated with the jivas, or conditioned souls. The unconditioned marginal potency acts in the spiritual kingdom, and the Lord, by His different plenary expansions, maintains them in different transcendental relations displayed in the spiritual sky. So the one Supreme Personality of Godhead manifests Himself in many (bahu syam), and thus all diversities are in Him, and He is in all diversities, although He is nevertheless different from all of them. That is the inconceivable mystic power of the Lord, and as such everything is simultaneously one with and different from Him by His inconceivable potencies (acintya-bhedabheda-tattva).

SB2.4.8

TEXT 8

nunam bhagavato brahman

harer adbhuta-karmanah

durvibhavyam ivabhati

kavibhis capi cestitam

nunam—still insufficient; bhagavatah—of the Personality of Godhead; brahman—O learned brahmana; hareh—of the Lord; adbhuta—wonderful; karmanah—one who acts; durvibhavyam—inconceivable; iva—like that; abhati—appears; kavibhih—even by the highly learned; ca—also; api—in spite of; cestitam—being endeavored for.

O learned brahmana, the transcendental activities of the Lord are all wonderful, and they appear inconceivable because even great endeavors by many learned scholars have still proved insufficient for understanding them.