19800809 Srimad-Bhagavatam 4.20.14 Government Of Rupa And Sanatana

Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 4 Chapter 20 Text 14

śreyaḥ prajā-pālanam eva rājño
 yat sāmparāye sukṛtāt ṣaṣṭham aṁśam
hartānyathā hṛta-puṇyaḥ prajānām
 arakṣitā kara-hāro ’gham atti

Translation

To give protection to the general mass of people who are citizens of the state is the prescribed occupational duty for a king. By acting in that way, the king in his next life shares one sixth of the result of the pious activities of the citizens. But a king or executive head of state who simply collects taxes from the citizens but does not give them proper protection as human beings has the results of his own pious activities taken away by the citizens, and in exchange for his not giving protection he becomes liable to punishment for the impious activities of his subjects.

So here Lord Vishnu is advising Maharaja Prithu how to be a successful ruler of his citizens. It is understood that if one performs his duty as given to him by higher authorities in disciplic succession, by performing one's service perfectly, one is able to achieve the highest perfection of life. A king’s duty is not only to levy taxes, punish miscreants, but it is also his primary duty to see that the citizens are Krishna conscious or God conscious. Without that, the kingdom becomes simply a trouble for the king and for the citizens. It becomes a trouble for the citizens in this life and the next. Because in this life there are all kinds of indiscipline, in the next life, he has to accept one-sixth of the sinful reactions of his praja, his citizens. The President of the United States– I don’t know if this is any indication– but it always seems that they age so much, immediately after being in office. I mean if there were a before and after picture I’m sure that anyone could say… I just, of course , I have not seen him in person but from their photographs it seems that they go through tremendous changes.

The rulers of this world need to know Krishna Consciousness principles. They are being put on the frying pan, they are accepting one sixth of these sinful activities of this nation and of the nation they rule. They do not know what they are getting in for. And they don’t because of the sectarian state so-called sectarian state, where there is no non-sectarian meaning to say, they don’t encourage the prajas, the citizens in any kind of religious activity; therefore everything is in a very critical state.

You might be interested to know how Rupa and Sanatan, when they were the Prime Ministers of the kingdom, of the empire of Hussain Shah, the Mohammedan Emperor of the United Kingdom’s of Bengal and Eastern India. Of course we know how humble they are! And mainly in Caitanya Caritamrita we understand their humility– describing themselves as so fallen to be employed in the service of Mohammedan. However, there was one devotee, Caitanya das who went with his teacher when he was a student. And Caitanya das described( Caitanya das is the father of Srinivas Acharya). There are two Srinivasas : one is Srivas Prabhu who is in the Panchtattva and the other is Srinivas Acharya who is the disciple of the sixth, Gopal Bhatta Goswami, student of Jiva Goswami who is a great preacher.

Caitanya Das went with his teacher to see the Prime Minister. Why would teachers go to see these Prime Ministers? Because you see, Rupa and Sanatan Goswamis, when they were ministers, they were running the whole Government. Actually the king didn’t have anything to do but declare war, whatever… just have good time. He didn’t have too many problems, he could spend his time in conquests… whatever he wanted to do, because actually the whole government was being run by Rupa and Sanatana. So what did they do? They built their own court a bit away from the King’s court( just a few miles) in a place called Rama Keli. And there, they reconstructed a Vrindavan situation. They dug a Radha Kunda, a Shyama Kunda for the sakhis, and the other sakhis Madhumangala and all the main sakhis, they dug the kundas. And they had Radha Madana Mohana deities which were regularly being worshipped. And everyday, countless scholars were coming– pandits, devotees, and they were always discussing the Bhagvatam, hearing the lessons of Bhagvatam, discussing Krishna katha and giving profuse charities to the Brahamanas for their Krishna conscious and scholarly work. So, as a result, actually the whole culture, the whole Vedic culture was in that kingdom. Why was Navadvipa flourishing? Well, it was because of the rain-cloud-like charity of Rupa and Sanatana, this is the inner secret why, one of the reasons why, the culture was kept at such a high tide. And they were so humble, although they were so powerful. Generally people become puffed up, proud; but they were so humble. Even when they were the Prime Ministers, they were so humble. They were very kind, they were very considerate, and they were very exacting in their judiciary skill, they took the advice of the Brahmanas but they were very penetrating in their own expertise for managing. Therefore they could finish their business very quickly and they could maintain the maximum time in Krishna Katha, Krishna worship.

To see this court of Rupa and Sanatana, when they were the Ministers, this Caitanya Das for his whole life couldn’t forget that what tremendous qualities they had. It's the duty of a ruler. But actually of course their destiny was not to remain as Prime Ministers. Their duty was to become of course the greatest preachers for Caitanya Mahaprabhu, to discover all the hidden tirthas of Vrindavan and to write Bhakti Shastra scriptures upon devotional principles. So of course one time when Lord Caitanya was going to Vrindavana, he went through that Rama Keli and at that time, there were literally hundreds of thousands of people gathering around Lord Caitanya, he was dancing ecstatically and engaging everyone in sankirtan. Hearing about the proximity of Lord Caitanya Rupa and Sanatan were very eager to go to him. Of course , a king at some point in time asked, "What about this Lord Caitanya?" They said "Oh, he’s just a sentimentalist. Don't take it very seriously," because they didn’t want him to become very obsessed with Caitanya Mahaprabhu. He might create some obstacle.

Rupa and Sanatan Goswamis went to see Lord Caitanya. And when they went to see Lord Caitanya they put a straw in their teeth and, from a great distance, they fell down and offered stuti, prayers. When they got up, Lord Caitanya started to approach them and they said, “Please, Please do not come near us. We are the most fallen. We are Mleccha, meat-eating community, we are the most fallen people to accept this service in this community. Do not come near us. We are so sinful.” And, although they were always reading the Bhagavatam, they were pure in every respect, they were daily worshipping Radha Madan Mohan, just because they had accepted the post as politicians as Prime Ministers for the Sehen Sha they were taking such a humble position. Then Lord Caitanya said “ Stop, Stop! You are breaking my heart with this humility. You are great devotees. And of course he gave them instruction what they should do and of course very soon, they made their escape and went off to Vrindavan, which story of course you know. So, we can see here of course that it's the duty of a ruler to to first of all be Krishna conscious. Then everything goes well. The Hussain Shah, might have wondered how things were going well. They were going well of course because things were Krishna conscious. Of course Lord Caitanya was present. Rupa Sanatana were also protecting by their Krishna Conscious ruling.

Judhisthir Maharaja, when he was President, things were so well run that one Brahman( his son died before him) he could approach Maharaja and say, "What is this? What kind of King are you? My son has died before I have. This means your kingdom is completely in disorder. This is against the order of nature. How can a son die before his father? You must be removed for this injustice."

And when we hear this, people have to laugh, scratch their heads or be in complete bewilderment, because we're in a world where people claim to be advanced, where everything is in such disorder in terms of natural harmony (harmony with nature, harmony with each other) that it is inconceivable that someone could dare complain to anyone that his son is dead before he is. Here, where volcanoes blow their tops, tidal waves and hurricanes come every other month , where genocide and wars– hot, cold, lukewarm– is the continuous situation ; where suicides… what to speak of… suicides in one part of… Where was I? I was just in one city, in Chicago. Within few block radius, there’s one of the wealthiest suburbs in America, they have the record. They have achieved the highest record of suicides of teenagers in their block. Thirty! Thirty suicides within not just one block, but you know like 3 or 4 blocks, their neighborhood within 1 or 2 years' time… Thirty suicides! They’re dropping like flies, so to speak. So this is the progress. Because people are told that if you are materially successful, that is your success. Some are born successful. What’re they going to do? Those people are born with the car and with the money and bank balance but they are completely frustrated ; that’s not the goal of life, but who’s telling them? You go to the church to play Bingo and see the marriage of two priests who are homosexuals. So what is the goal of life? Who can figure it out in the modern society? Therefore people are completely bewildered.

Srila Prabhupada said that in previous times we would go and convince the King, and when the King was convinced the King would make his whole kingdom. Just like in India, before Maharaja Ashoka was converted to Buddhism, Buddhism couldn’t make any progress. When he was converted, he could make the whole India Buddhist. Later, he was driven out. So, of course after some time, Buddhism had to stay in other nations nearby as Bharat became smaller. But this is the situation.

Today it's Democracy for the people or by the people, whatever… of the people. It's a question whether it’s for the people but anyway, it is supposed to be by the people. So who can the people blame if they vote these bogus people to rule them. Therefore Srila Prabhupada said, "We have to educate the masses," about what are the real values of life. Then they can demand . " We want honest, God conscious administrators, rulers in our government.

Right now people do not have any real standard. In such a big nation, bigger democracy, most powerful democracy in the world United States of America and the Presidential election, they are fortunate if 50 percent of the people even bother to vote. The people are pathetic. They know … This one or that one– what’s the difference? They are not interested. Basically, these systems are not successful because they are not inducing people to become God conscious. Therefore they don’t care anymore. So many people don’t care. Caring, concerns, and responsibilities come when we realize, " I am eternal. How I act will affect me not only in this life, but also in future lives." Then we can understand. These things have not been taught. They don’t realize the relationship with Krishna. Therefore we distribute books, we go and preach to them, we cultivate congregations, to bring them to the platform of understanding.

Actually the devotees' lives are completely different. A devotee is always absorbed in Krishna consciousness. In fact, there’s a prayer that says that the Gaudiyas, the devotees of Lord Caitanya, their life and soul is Sri Sri Radha Madan Mohan, Sri Sri Radha Govinda, and Sri Sri Radha Gopinatha. So, the devotees of Caitanya Mahaprabhu had accepted as their life and soul, these three deities. And the worship of these deities of course was first expanded by the goswamis in Vrindavan. The deity of Govindaji … When Rupa and Sanatana went, there were no deity that they could worship. And Rupa Rupa Goswami was feeling very dissatisfied because there was Vrindavan, there was his service, he was chanting and everything ; Where was Govinda? What is Vrindavan without Krishna? So he was very eager to find Govinda. One time he was absorbed in that kind of separation from Lord Govinda. Then suddenly one elderly Brahamana Brajwasi came up and said, "Why you looking so sad? He said, "I want to find Govinda. What is Vrindavan without Govinda?" And the brajwasi said, "Well there is one place, where a most beautiful, celestial-looking cow comes everyday , and spontaneously waters the ground with milk from her milk-bags and goes away. And you just meditate on that point and think what it means. "And then that Brahmana disappeared– not in the ordinary way but poof! And then Rupa Goswami took that this was something very special. Naturally, it didn’t take him too much to think on that subject. Immediately, he ran to that place, and as soon as he got there, he started erupting in transcendental emotion and he practically fell unconscious by the side of that place. And he knew, " Govinda is here." So he got all of the people from around and said, "Come Govinda is beneath this Earth here." So, everyone came and they started to carefully excavate. Radha Madan Mohan, Radha… Of course each deity is non- different because they are Krishna ; but each deity is different in that It's Lila vishesh. Every deity has got his own relationships and his own pastimes with his devotees.

Just like Krishna would just expand and he would be the husband of Rukmini, husband of Satyabama, husband of Kalin Kalindi, though his relationship with each queen was different. Similarily, we can understand from the shastra that each deity has a separate reciprocation or relationship with his own devotees. Therefore, just like that young Brahmana who went with the old Brahmana to Vrindavana and then the old Brahmana was so pleased with his service that he said in front of Lord Gopala, "I am going to give you my daughter to be your wife. And then they went back to Orissa, but then due to so many politics of their family members, they said, "Oh, no! This is not possible. He wanted to give his daughter but his wife and the older son were all against it because hewas a poor Brahmana. They said, "You should give your daughter to a rich Brahmana in marriage, not this insignificant, poor Brahmana. So in the face of all the pressure of his relatives he could not(give his daughter to the poor brahmana)… He prayed to Govinda, "How to save me from this?" But he couldn't face up to it. He said, "No, no. Where is the proof that I said this(promised) or something? Somehow he avoided the issue. Then the Brahmana said, "Well if Gopala gives witness, then I will give my daughter. " And they all said, "Oh, yes," because all the other relatives were not so faithful. "Yes, yes. If your Gopala comes here and gives witness, then we'll give the daughter. So just see the affection of the Lord for his devotee! The Brahmana walked all the way back to Vrindavan and prayed to Gopal, "You were the witness. You must please come and testify to the old Brahmana's promise, otherwise his religious principles will be ruined… he was a Brahamana but he was lying. "

Then the Lord said, "How can I go there? I am a deity." The brahmana said, " Yeah, how can a deity talk? (devotees laugh). You can talk, so you can also walk. So you should come." Gopal Said, " I’ll come, but I will walk behind you. But if you look back, then I’ll stop there. You cannot look behind, how I am walking. You’ll just hear that I am following you by my ankle bells. So of course the young brahmana began on his journey and Gopala walked off with him, all the way down to Orissa. You probably know this. When they got there of course he became, there, at the end, he could not bear to not look and he turned around and there immediately Gopala, outside the village, stood in His murti form! And he testified against the elderly Brahmana's promise. Everyone could see what a great devotee the poor brahmana was – the Lord walked all the way from Vrindavan just out of affection for His devotee. And still today the deity of Sakhi Gopala is being worshipped. So, in a similar way, Govinda didn’t have any Radharani. Do you know how Govinda was united with Shrimati Radharani?

Long time ago Shrimati Radharani had separated from Govinda somehow. And she was in Orissa, being worshipped by one devotee by the name of Brihadbanu who had a relationship with Radharani that she was his daughter. And he would worship her and take care of her just as his daughter. This was the relationship. Like Vrishabhanu, who also of course had that relationship with Srimati Radharani. There’s nothing unusual about it. These things exist in the spiritual world. But after he disappeared and gradually the Sevapuja, the deity worship became deteriorated and the local people no longer knew exactly that real nature of this deity. They knew the deity to be Laxmi, and so they were worshipping Radharani as Laxmi. So what happened was, the Goswamis they wanted to have Radharanis but they were thinking how to do it. The eldest son of Mahraja Prataparudra whose name is Jagannath Jana, had a dream where the Lord told him to provide a deity for Govinda and said that the Radharani. Actually, Radharani came to him– I believe– and told him, " I’m in such and such a village and they know me as Laxmi ; but actually I am Radharani. And I want you to send me back to Vrindavan to be with Lord Govinda. So, of course Jagannath Jana was so excited that he ran down to that place and saw that the deity the people were worshipping as Mahalaxmi was actually two-handed Radharani. And, so he took the necessary steps in a big ceremony to transport Srimati Radharani to Lord Govinda. And in Vrindavana… Of course there again they were united. Who can express the transcendental joy of their reunion? And all the brajawasis were of course very ecstatic.

So, this Radha Govinda ( I was telling Swabhas yesterday) are very dear to the Gaudiyas. Actually, they gave the order to do book distribution to one of the great devotees of Lord Chaitanaya, Srinivas Acharya. He actually was sent. Narottam das Thakur has a prayer, where he prays, " Lord Caitanya you have so many energies who have come down to help you in your pastimes : just like Rupa and Sanatana have been empowered by you to write transcendental literatures, other devotees like Srinivas Acharya have been empowered to distribute these literatures and to spread the knowledge of these literatures. So, I pray to simply always be engaged in serving your servant's servant's servant's. Like that there’s one prayer that Narottam Das has sung. Of course, Narottam himself is a great preacher. So after a tremendous ordeal, where Srinivas Acharya was actually very very sad because he has never seen Lord Caitanya in person and he was always just very unfortunate in a sense that whenever he would go to meet some personality like Lord Caitanya, just before he got there, he would disappear. You see of course when he met Gadadhar he went back to get something and he had just disappeared, when he went to see Nitai Gaur Advaita and he just disappeared. Of course he would always go into tremendous spiritual separation. At that point sometimes he thinks that I should just leave my body, he’d be rolling in the ground smashing his head thinking how useless his life was. But this was like his history. Finally, when he hot to Vrindavana, he wanted to meet Rupa and Sanatana he got there and as he was just bathing in a river some Brahmanas came by and were lamenting the fact that Rupa and Sanatana have left the world. Everything was empty and he heard that and he just went mad. Just you see and he was practically, he was lying unconscious in the temple of Radha Govinda just thinking that he should take his life… What should he do? There’s no one he could study the Bhagvatam under. All the associates of Lord Caitanya had disappeared. You see, at that time Lord Caitanya, Rupa and Sanatana came in the dream both of Jiva Goswami and Gopala Bhatta Goswami… told Jiva Goswami and told , "You go to the temple you find him, you can recognize this young Brahmana, Srinivas Acharya, and you make sure that he takes initiation from Gopal Bhatta Goswami and learna from you the science of the Bhagwat ; you take care of him. His duty is going to be to preach my sankirtan movement all over. And he told(in a similar dream) Gopal Bhatta that this person will come and you should accept him as a disciple, he has suffered spiritual agony too much. so much. So Jiva Goswami went to the temple and saw that while the Aarti is going and Srinivas is off in one corner , just collapsed and crying and he could understand, "this is Srinivas," and he picked him up with his own hands and embraced him. And Srinivas, when he heard who this was, he fell down and grabbed his lotus feet. And then, Jiva Goswami took him to the to his ashram, to his little place where he was stayed and took care of him and eventually he took initiation from Gopala Bhtaa Goswami. So making you know long story shorter, what happened was, you see, all the Goswamis had written so many literatures. Caitanya Caritamrita was being written in Radha Kunda by Krishna Das Kaviraj. Different literatures and tikhaas, commentaries were all being written there. But these were all then transported to Bengal, to Gourmandal Bhoomi. They were all practically drying up, waiting to get the Nectar from Vrindavan and to preach it. So, this was the situation in time. One day everyone was present in the Radha Govinda Temple, when Govinda suddenly spoke! He said to Jiva Goswami, "You give the power to Srinivas to take the devotional literatures to Bengal and distribute them to my devotees." That’s all he said and he dropped his garland. And saying , " Haribol! Haribol!" everyone went wild… they just saw that the deities started speaking and everybody just went wild. And immediately the Pujari had tears in his eyes and he picked the garland up and he put the garlanded Srinivas Acharya and he started to pay his obeisances, overwhelmed and crying. And so then immediately everyone got prepared, "All right. Now we have to send the books. And they made the date and prepared the bullock cart and everything and they carried all these literatures all the way to Bengal, you see; so this was the situation. So actually Radha Govinda, we can see that they are very much behind book distribution. You see, actually they initiated this… they were the first books that were really written by our Gaudiya devotees and he sent Srinivas to go and distribute them. Narottam described that some are empowered to write, some are empowered to distribute– these are both confidential services to the Lord. To preach to other devotees is a confidential service. Of course, Srinivas Acharya was not alone, with him was his associates like Narottam Thakur, Shyamananda Pandit, –so many others – Ramachandra Kaviraj … Ramachandra Kaviraja was his disciple actually.

When they went to Bengal with these books, they went into a country, Bankura, which is in Bengal and there the King, in order to make his treasury full he had a side business, which was called dacoity or armed robbery. He had a special team of trained troops who were actually nothing but robbers. And he had an astrologer who would study astrologically who was coming on the road. So, the astrologer studied that the most valuable treasure is coming; it’s being carried by simply some sadhus. They have a huge box and it’s filled with some valuable treasure which I cannot understand, but from astrological reading, it’s the most valuable thing. So the king said, "This is very good news!" So he sent out his robbers.

That night of course they were sleeping , our great previous Acharyas and the robbers come in and see here’s just some sanyasis, some preachers and the big box under : this is like taking a candy from a baby. They just came in , took the box and left; no one even knew what happened. They woke up in the morning and, "Oh, no! All the scriptures are gone! All the books are gone! Srinivas is again, he’s just smashing his head, pounding I mean. The others just went off in different directions –because it was too much– and began preaching. But Srinivas is like, " I have to find these books." He practically left his body in the anxiety. So then, he finally went, finally got to this King’s courtroom and there he saw all the Brahmana’s sitting and trying to figure out what is the meaning of these books. And they are giving this interpretation and that and he comes in and says, "These people appear to be Brahmanas, but they don’t know what they’re saying. So a statement like that is a very big challenge. The King immediately said, "So you think you can explain better than them? if you cannot then it may cost your life to challenge all these exalted Brahmanas in this way. He said, " Yes, by the mercy of my spiritual master, I can try to explain to you what these mean. What had happened was, Caitanya Charitamrita was at the bottom when they were carrying the books, but it came to the top of the box, because it is the most exalted literature in our Sampradaya. Prabhupada described it as the Post Graduate study of devotional service. So then he began to preach from these literatures and everyone was amazed. They, couldn’t stop listening : he was explaining Caitanya Mahaprabhu, he was explaining Radha Krishna, he was explaining devotional service. And so the king got off his throne and fell down at Srinivas Acarya's feet and said, "Please accept me as your disciple. You must be the King’s guru, guru for this whole kingdom and guide us how we can advance in our spiritual life.” So then at that point, Srinivas Acharya became the Raj guru and that whole kingdom( even today there are so many Dasas. We make so many of our devotees from Bankura district) followed him. There’s this ancient temple of Lord Chaitanaya, where the wooden deities, beautiful wooden deities are all carved in Bankura district. Many of them. The best, beautiful deities I’ve seen are carved there. So, by the preaching to this ruler converting the whole kingdom was immediately made Caitanaya Mahaprabhu sankirtan movement Krishna Conscious! Of course nowadays, who do you approach? Even if the democratic leader is convinced, he can’t say anything to his constituents, because they will just knock him down, take him off the boat. Therefore we have to preach to the intelligent people, to the mass of people and convince them.

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