Utopian (Books)
Srimad-Bhagavatam
SB Canto 1
The holy places all over the earth are meant for purifying the polluted consciousness of the human being by an atmosphere surcharged with the presence of the Lord's unalloyed devotees. If anyone visits a holy place, he must search out the pure devotees residing in such holy places, take lessons from them, try to apply such instructions in practical life and thus gradually prepare oneself for the ultimate salvation, going back to Godhead. To go to some holy place of pilgrimage does not mean only to take a bath in the Ganges or Yamunā or to visit the temples situated in those places. One should also find representatives of Vidura who have no desire in life save and except to serve the Personality of Godhead. The Personality of Godhead is always with such pure devotees because of their unalloyed service, which is without any tinge of fruitive action or utopian speculation. They are in the actual service of the Lord, specifically by the process of hearing and chanting. The pure devotees hear from the authorities and chant, sing and write of the glories of the Lord. Mahāmuni Vyāsadeva heard from Nārada, and then he chanted in writing; Śukadeva Gosvāmī studied from his father, and he described it to Parīkṣit; that is the way of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. So by their actions the pure devotees of the Lord can render any place into a place of pilgrimage, and the holy places are worth the name only on their account. Such pure devotees are able to rectify the polluted atmosphere of any place, and what to speak of a holy place rendered unholy by the questionable actions of interested persons who try to adopt a professional life at the cost of the reputation of a holy place.
SB Canto 2
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 Mahārāja Parīkṣit, 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 jña, as stated hereinbefore in connection with Śukadeva Gosvāmī. 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 Mahārāja Parīkṣit. It was, however, already known to Mahārāja Parīkṣit that everything we see is born out of the energy of the Lord, as we have all learned in the very beginning of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (janmādy asya yataḥ [SB 1.1.1)). So Mahārāja Parīkṣit 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-gītā (9.10), and it is clearly said there that material energy is a manifestation of one of many such energies of the Supreme (parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate [Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport)). 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-gītā, 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 Brahmā, Śiva, 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-gītā, one can compare the long duration of life of the inhabitants of Brahmā's planet, which is inconceivable to the inhabitants of this planet earth, to the categorical value of the brain of Brahmājī, also inconceivable to any great scientist of this planet. And with such high brain power, even Brahmājī has described in his great saṁhitā (Bs. 5.1) as follows:
- īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ
- sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ
- anādir ādir govindaḥ
- sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam
"There are many personalities possessing the qualities of Bhagavān, but Kṛṣṇa 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."
Brahmājī admits Lord Kṛṣṇa 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-gītā that He (Lord Kṛṣṇa) is all in all, the speculative philosophers and the mundane wranglers deride Him, and the Lord regretfully says:
- avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā
- mānuṣīṁ tanum āśritam
- paraṁ bhāvam ajānanto
- mama bhūta-maheśvaram
"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)
Therefore it is best for me to surrender unto His feet, which alone can deliver one from the miseries of repeated birth and death. Such surrender is all-auspicious and allows one to perceive all happiness. Even the sky cannot estimate the limits of its own expansion. So what can others do when the Lord Himself is unable to estimate His own limits?
Lord Brahmā, the greatest of all learned living beings, the greatest sacrificer, the greatest observer of the austere life, and the greatest self-realized mystic, advises us, as the supreme spiritual master of all living beings, that one should simply surrender unto the lotus feet of the Lord in order to achieve all success, even up to the limit of being liberated from the miseries of material life and being endowed with all-auspicious spiritual existence. Lord Brahmā is known as the pitāmaha, or the father's father. A young man consults his experienced father about discharging his duties. So the father is naturally a good advisor. But Lord Brahmā is the father of all fathers. He is the father of the father of Manu, who is the father of mankind all over the universal planets. Therefore the men of this insignificant planet should kindly accept the instruction of Brahmājī and would do well to surrender unto the lotus feet of the Lord rather than try to estimate the length and breadth of the Lord's potencies. His potencies are immeasurable, as confirmed in the Vedas. Parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate svābhāvikī jñāna-bala-kriyā ca (Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 6.8 [Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport)). He is the greatest of all, and all others, even the greatest of all living beings, namely Brahmājī, admits that the best thing for us is to surrender unto Him. Therefore only those persons with a very poor fund of knowledge claim that they themselves are lords of all that they survey. And what can they survey? They cannot survey even the length and breadth of a small sky in one small universe. The so-called material scientist says that he would need to live forty thousand years to reach the highest planet of the universe, being carried by a sputnik. This is also utopian because no one can be expected to live forty thousand years. Besides, when the space pilot returned from his travel, none of his friends would be present to receive him back as the greatest astronaut, as has become fashionable for modern bewildered scientific men. One scientific man, who had no belief in God, was very much enthusiastic in making plans for his material existence and therefore opened a hospital to save the living. But after opening the hospital, he himself died within six months. So one should not spoil his human life, species of life, simply for the concocted material happiness of life through increasing artificial needs in the name of advancement of economic development and scientific knowledge. Rather, one should simply surrender unto the feet of the Lord to make a solution to all miseries of life. That is the instruction of Lord Kṛṣṇa directly in the Bhagavad-gītā, and that is the instruction of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam by Brahmājī, the supreme father of all living beings.
Śrī Śukadeva Gosvāmī said: O King, unless one is influenced by the energy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, there is no meaning to the relationship of the pure soul in pure consciousness with the material body. That relationship is just like a dreamer's seeing his own body working.
Mahārāja Parīkṣit's question as to how a living entity began his material life, although he is apart from the material body and mind, is perfectly answered. The spirit soul is distinct from the material conception of his life, but he is absorbed in such a material conception because of being influenced by the external energy of the Lord, called ātma-māyā. This has already been explained in the First Canto in connection with Vyāsadeva's realization of the Supreme Lord and His external energy. The external energy is controlled by the Lord, and the living entities are controlled by the external energy—by the will of the Lord. Therefore, although the living entity is purely conscious in his pure state, he is subordinate to the will of the Lord in being influenced by the external energy of the Lord. In the Bhagavad-gītā (15.15) also the same thing is confirmed; the Lord is present within the heart of every living entity, and all the living entity's consciousness and forgetfulness are influenced by the Lord.
Now the next question automatically made will be why the Lord influences the living entity to such consciousness and forgetfulness. The answer is that the Lord clearly wishes that every living entity be in his pure consciousness as a part and parcel of the Lord and thus be engaged in the loving service of the Lord as he is constitutionally made; but because the living entity is partially independent also, he may not be willing to serve the Lord, but may try to become as independent as the Lord is. All the nondevotee living entities are desirous of becoming equally as powerful as the Lord, although they are not fit to become so. The living entities are illusioned by the will of the Lord because they wanted to become like Him. Like a person who thinks of becoming a king without possessing the necessary qualification, when the living entity desires to become the Lord Himself, he is put in a condition of dreaming that he is a king. Therefore the first sinful will of the living entity is to become the Lord, and the consequent will of the Lord is that the living entity forget his factual life and thus dream of the land of utopia where he may become one like the Lord. The child cries to have the moon from the mother, and the mother gives the child a mirror to satisfy the crying and disturbing child with the reflection of the moon. Similarly, the crying child of the Lord is given over to the reflection, the material world, to lord it over as karmī and to give this up in frustration to become one with the Lord. Both these stages are dreaming illusions only. There is no necessity of tracing out the history of when the living entity desired this. But the fact is that as soon as he desired it, he was put under the control of ātma-māyā by the direction of the Lord. Therefore the living entity in his material condition is dreaming falsely that this is "mine" and this is "I." The dream is that the conditioned soul thinks of his material body as "I" or falsely thinks that he is the Lord and that everything in connection with that material body is "mine." Thus only in dream does the misconception of "I" and "mine" persist life after life. This continues life after life, as long as the living entity is not purely conscious of his identity as the subordinate part and parcel of the Lord.
In his pure consciousness, however, there is no such misconceived dream, and in that pure conscious state the living entity does not forget that he is never the Lord, but that he is eternally the servitor of the Lord in transcendental love.
Sri Caitanya-caritamrta
CC Adi-lila
In Brahmaloka there is an unlimited number of airplanes that are controlled not by yantra (machine) but by mantra (psychic action). Because of the existence of the mind and intelligence on Brahmaloka, its residents have feelings of happiness and distress, but there is no cause of lamentation from old age, death, fear or distress. They feel sympathy, however, for the suffering living beings who are consumed in the fire of annihilation. The residents of Brahmaloka do not have gross material bodies to change at death, but they transform their subtle bodies into spiritual bodies and thus enter the spiritual sky. The residents of Brahmaloka can attain perfection in three different ways. Virtuous persons who reach Brahmaloka by dint of their pious work become masters of various planets after the resurrection of Brahmā, those who have worshiped Garbhodakaśāyī Viṣṇu are liberated with Brahmā, and those who are pure devotees of the Personality of Godhead at once push through the covering of the universe and enter the spiritual sky.
The numberless universes exist together in foamlike clusters, and so only some of them are surrounded by the water of the Causal Ocean. When agitated by the glance of Kāraṇodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, material nature produces the total elements, which are eight in number and which gradually evolve from finer to gross. A part of ego is the sky, a part of which is air, a part of which is fire, a part of which is water, a part of which is earth. Thus one universe inflates to an area of four billion miles in diameter. A yogī who desires gradual liberation must penetrate all the different coverings of the universe, including the subtle coverings of the three qualitative modes of material nature. One who does this never has to return to this mortal world.
According to Śukadeva Gosvāmī, the above description of the material and spiritual skies is neither imaginary nor utopian. The actual facts are recorded in the Vedic hymns, and Lord Vāsudeva disclosed them to Lord Brahmā when Brahmā satisfied Him. One can achieve the perfection of life only when he has a definite idea of Vaikuṇṭha and the Supreme Godhead. One should always think about and describe the Supreme Personality of Godhead, for this is recommended in both the Bhagavad-gītā and the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, which are two authorized commentaries upon the Vedas. Lord Caitanya has made all these subject matters easier for the fallen people of this age to accept, and Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta has therefore presented them for the easy understanding of all concerned.
| Page Title: | Utopian (Books) |
| Compiler: | Labangalatika, MahavishnuSwami |
| Created: | 31 of Jul, 2009 |
| Totals by Section: | BG=0, SB=4, CC=1, OB=0, Lec=0, Con=0, Let=0 |
| No. of Quotes: | 5 |