“evam sada karma-kalapam atmanah
Pare ‘dhiyajne bhagavaty adhoksaje
Sarvatma-bhavam vidadhan mahim imam
Tan-nistha-vipabhihitah sasasa ha”
(SB 9.4.21)
Translation
In performing his prescribed duties as king, Maharaja Ambarisa always offered the results of his royal activities to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna, who is the enjoyer of everything and is beyond the perception of material senses. He certainly took advice from brahmanas who were faithful devotees of the Lord, and thus he ruled the planet earth without difficulty.
Purport
People are very much anxious to live in peace and prosperity in this material world, and here in Bhagvad-gita the peace formula is given personally by the Supreme Personality of Godhead: everyone should understand that Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is the ultimate proprietor of all the planets and is therefore the enjoyer of all activities, political, social, cultural, religious, economic and so on. The lord has given perfect advice in Bhagvad-gita and Ambarisa Maharaja, as the ideal executive head, ruled the entire world as a Vaisnava, taking advice from Vaisnana brahmanas. The sastras enjoin that even though a brahmana may be well versed in the occupational brahminical duties and may be very learned in Vedic Knowledge, he cannot give advice as a guru until he is a Vaisnana.
“sat-marma-nipuno vipro
Mantra-tantra-visaradah
Avaisnavo gurur na syad
Vaisnavah sva-paco guruh”
Therefore, as indicated here by the words ‘tan-nistha-viprabhihitah’, Maharaja Ambarisa took advice from brahmanas who were pure devotees of the Lord, for ordinary brahmanas who are merely learned scholars or experts in performing ritualistic ceremonies are not competent to give advice.
In modern times, there are legislative assemblies whose members are authorized to make laws for the welfare of the state, but according to this description of the kingdom of Maharaja Ambarisa, the country or the world should be rulesd by a chief executive whose advisers are all devotee brahmanas. Such advisors or members of the legislative assembly should not be professional politicians, nor should they be selected by the ignorant public. Rather, they should be appointed by the king. When the king, the executive head of the state, is a devotee and he follows the instructions of devotee brahmanas in ruling the country, everyone will be peaceful and prosperous. When the king and his advisors are perfect devotees, nothing can be wrong in the state. All the citizens should become devotees of the Lord, and then their good character will automatically follow.
“yasyasti bhaktir bhagavaty akincana
Sarvair gunais tatra samasate surah
Harav abhaktasya kuto mahad-guna
Manorathenasati dhavato bahih”
“One who has unflinching devotion for the Personality of Godhead has all the good qualities of the demigods. But one who is not a devotee of the Lord has only material qualifications that are of little value. This is because he is hovering on the mental plane and is certain to be attracted by the glaring material energy”. (Bhag 5.18.12) Citizens under the guidance of a Krishna conscious king will become devotees, and then there will be no need to enact new laws every day to reform the way of life in the state. If the citizens are trained to become devotees, they will automatically become peaceful and honest, and if they are guided by a devotee king advised by devotees, the state will not be in a material world but in the spiritual world. All the states of the world should therefore follow the ideal of the rule or administration of Maharaja Ambarisa, as described here.
Translation
In performing his prescribed duties as king, Maharaja Ambarisa always offered the results of his royal activities to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krishna, who is the enjoyer of everything and is beyond the perception of material senses. He certainly took advice from brahmanas who were faithful devotees of the Lord, and thus he ruled the planet earth without difficulty.
In the next canto of the Bhagvatam, we find that there was a time when mother earth in the form of a cow approaches Lord Brahma. And she is explaining that I am in a very painful suffering condition because there is very heavy burden upon me. And this heavy burden is due to the weight of great sinful activities that have been committed by sinful hypocritical kings and rulers who are misguiding all of human civilization. This is the condition of kali-yuga.
Maharaja Parikshit, when he was travelling on his ……… chariot, he was showing by his example of real king, a great king. He did not have cabinet members who were simply trying to use him and exploit him for their own purpose, b1ut those who took vows of renunciation, whose only goal in life was the welfare of others, he would only accept advice from them, those who were learned in the scriptures, and those who were gentle, compassionate, and God conscious with pure hearts. And his only goal in life was to execute humbly their instructions. He travelled making sure that no one who is in a position of a leader, is exploiting or misusing the resources of the God. And he saw kali personified who was a low class sinful man dressed as a king beating mercilessly a cow and a bull. And Maharaja Parikshit understood that this is the beginning of the end of civilization, when kings become corrupt, when kings are not given guidance by pure devotees of the Lord. So he took his sward and was about to kill kali. But of course we know that before such a great king …….. who had to bow his head at his feet and surrender. We see Maharaja Parikshit could not tolerate seeing any one in his kingdom being misused, exploited or misled by fools and rascals. But the symptom of the coming of Kaliyuga is more and more evident to the degree the leaders of society become materialistic and corrupt. And the materialistic corruption comes when they try to rule the state through their own sense perception and their own mental speculation. Everything is the property of God. This world, it shows, is the kingdom of God. But we cannot recognize the kingdom of God unless we accept God as king, that means His word is supreme, His laws are supreme. And there is humble service of the brahmanas, they are the real leaders of society. According to the sastra the social body has a head, has arms, has a belly and has legs. Each part of the social body has a specific and a social function, but each must cooperative to one another in a harmony. The head gives direction, and only the head given direction. The feet, the belly, and the arms, if they try to give directions to the body the full body will be destroyed and diseased. It is the head and the head alone that directs the body. The brahmanas are the head of the society. They give direction to the society. But here it is explained that Maharaja Ambarisa, he only accepted those brahmanas who were pure devotees of the Lord. Maharaja Ambarisa cared nothing for brahmanas by birth or brahmana by intellectualization. Srila Prabhupada, he was condemning a person to be known as a Brahman simply because of his intellectual understanding of the Vedas, that was not enough. It is described
That such a person cannot even deliver himself, what to speak of others. The real guides in society must be brahmanas who are humble, gentle pure devotees of the Lord. Who had understood the real essence of Vedas.
“vedais ca sarvair aham eva vedyo
Vedabta-krd veda-vid eva caham”
Just surrender to Krishna in His devotion. That person, even if he is born in the family of dog-eaters, it is explained here, even if he is born in the sinful circumstances, he is to be considered a real leader of the society. He can be guru for the whole world. And not only that but he must be given all rights given to the brahmanas and more. This is according to the sastra. We see, those who actually understand the truth and who are sincere, are only impressed by humanity and surrender. And anything in pursuance of these two qualities, we give them great respect, whether it be material expertise, material sphere, intellectualism, whether it be power of management. If these are in pursuance of the service of the Lord with purity, with humility and with devotion, then we offer all respect. Without these two qualities of humility and devotion all our material qualifications are simply zeros. They have no value and they have no meaning to Krishna and they have no meaning to the real sadhus who know Krishna. The common man, you show him some mystical magical …… and he is impressed. But the pure devotee of the Lord is not impressed by anything except humility and devotion, nothing else can impress such a person because he knows the truth. He knows, all these things without humility and devotion, are actually disqualifications, they are just distraction. The purpose of everything we do is to acquire humility and devotion because without these two qualities we cannot attract Krishna. This is the teaching of Gita. This is the teaching of Bhagvatam and this is the opinion of all the great acaryas. So Maharaja Ambarisa, he was a true King.
It is described that in the social body the kstriya class, the king, the military man, the politicians, they are like the arms of society. What is the purpose of function of the arms: to protect, to give protection to the head, to the belly, to the legs, to every limb. Kstriya means to protect……………., it is not meant to be aggressive. And the kstriyas, the arms of society, are only functional to the extent that they are taking their direction fully from the head, or the pure devotees of the Lord.
I remember, one time the devotees asked Prabhupada “if we can take over the whole world and make it Krishna Conscious, can we make you the king, and they were very excited about the idea”. Srila Prabhupada said “No, I will not be the king”. And then everyone was thinking, O what we said is wrong. He said “I will be the guru of the king”. That means he will dictate how to make this world the spiritual world and the king will humbly obey. And we find throughout the Vedic culture all the great kings, their most attractive quality is their humility and obedience to those who are in renounced order. Maharaja Ambarisa, when Durvasa Muni came to his home, we are about to read, even though Druvasa Muni was about to get angry with Ambarisa Maharaja, he was a great sage. So just to set proper precedent, Ambarisa Maharaja, very humbly with folded hands accepted the position of a servant. We read that Dashrath Maharaja, although he was the king of all of Ayodhya, the most powerful king on earth, when any great sage would come to his home or his palace, whether it be Vaishsta Muni, Vishvamitra Muni, he would get off his throne, wash their feet, and offer with great humility, whatever he had at the feet of such great souls. Maharaja Yudhistra did the same way. When great souls like Narada Muni or any sadhu would come, he would put them on his own throne, wash their feet and humbly serve them and carry out their instructions. And of course the Supreme Personality of Godhead, in His divine form of Dwarka Dhish, when in Dwarka, he established the same principles. Sudama Vipra was a poor simple man. He did not think ‘O’ what is he doing, he is some parasite of society, begger………. Where does he get a job, do something constructive. Krishna got off His throne, took the dust from Sudama’s feet upon His head, washed his feet. The Goddess of fortune herself, Laxmidevi fanned him with a chammra. They prepared wonderful feast for him, offered him their whole palace, their whole kingdom, every thing. Krishna accepted the position of his most obedient servant, just to show to the society that if the king does not humble himself, if any grahastha, in any high position or low position does not humble himself before the renounced order of life, then that persons is useless…………., however he may be decorated with material qualifications. But those who are in renounced order of life, if they are actually in the renounced order of life, they must renounce pride altogether. They must not manipulate or …… their position, they must simply with great purity of purpose, present the will of God, present the direction of God consciousness for all to follow, through their life and through their words.
And the belly is compared to the Vaisyas who are the farmers, the agricultures, the merchants, the business men. They are providing nourishment to every part of the social body; by providing food, by providing transportation, by providing all the material necessities that are required to live peacefully in the service of God.
The legs are compared to Shudras, the laborer class. Their natural propensities, due to their previous karma is, they are very peaceful, very happy and very expert when they are simply following directions of the three other classes. Of course there is a great misconception that because God has taken out from the centre of this Varnashram system, all the different classes are simply competing. Communism means that shudras want power ……….. being persecuted as being low class. They want to rule. Capitalism means the Vaisyas, we have all the money, we have all the material resources, why should we take instructions from anyone, we should rule according to our mental speculation, according to our sensual motives.
Dictatorship means the kstriya, he just wants to rule everything. I am the arms, I have the strength, I have the armies, I want to be in power, and therefore conquer all others, subjugate them, exploit them, brainwash them with propaganda….. In this way this world is very nicely summarized by Prahlad Maharaja. When the blind lead the blind, they both fall into the ditch. This whole world has become one big ditch, because all the leaders are blind and therefore all the followers are blind, and everyone is simply running, full speed ahead into this great ditch. Srila Prabhupada said that the war between capitalism and communism is that both are basically demonic, there is no spiritual leadership. He said but if the communist take over the world religion is finished, there is no hope. But if the capitalist rule, because the concept of democracy is, there is some idea of freedom of religion, there is still scope for God consciousness within the world. But of course religious fanaticism which is based on politics, but really has nothing to do with religion at all, is the worst of all, because in the name of God people are being exploited simply to serve the purpose of the demonic desires of the leaders. So this is the situation all around. The only solution is that the people have to wake up and understand the goal of life. And the leaders of society have to know that the common man will do according to their direction, therefore they are responsible. It is explained in the Bhagvatam
“gurur na sa syat sva-jno na sa syat
Pita na sa syaj janani na sa syat
That one has no right to accept any position of leadership when he is not allowed to take the position of a king, a demigod, a mother or father, or even a teacher, unless you have a power to deliver your students or dependents from the repetition of birth and death. If you cannot do that, you are a cheater and you will be punished severely by the laws of material nature for misleading the innocent souls. Because human form of life is meant to live in harmony with the will of God. And only the pure devotee of Lord, only the great acaryas, the great sadhus, who are hearing the divine word through disciplic succession, actually know what is the true will of God. There are many great religions of the world but all of them are repeating the essence of the same subject matter. The true leaders of all religions will harmonize and love one another because they see the essence of pure love of God within each others teaching and within each others lives. Religion without realization, without true leadership, simply becomes sentimentalism, fanaticism and create hate and violence. This is the great problem. So therefore, it is very essential for the world to understand this great story of Maharaja Ambarisa. How he lived? The very basis of his rule over the world is described in this verse. Icn performing his prescribed duties as king, Maharaja Ambarisa always offered the results of his royal activities to the Supreme Personalitcy of Godhead Sri Krishna, who is enjoyer of everything and is beyond the perception of material senses. He certainly took advice from the brahmanas who were faithful devotees of the Lord and thus he ruled the planet earth without difficulty. His great quality was that he has willing to humble himself before the guru, the sadhu and the sastra. And we find that any one, in any order of life, he is willing to accept this principle of humbly being the servant of the devotees of the Lord, that persons will always be protected by Krishna in all circumstances. Maharaja Ambarisa, he was a great king. When Durvasa Muni who was about to attack him with a very mystical weapon creating a massive firing monster, Ambarisa was so humble, he simply with folded hands prayed ‘my Lord if you want to kill me I die, no problem, let your will be done. If you want to protect me why do I have to fear. At that time Krishna Himself appeared in His Sudarshan Chakra to protect Ambarisa. In this way we see that one who is the humble servant of the vaisnavas is always dear to Krishna, and Krishna will never abandon such a great soul. He will always protect him under all circumstances.
So we should not be surprised in this age of quarrel and hypocrisy. That hypocritical leaders and sinful men in the guise of so called religious leaders, that they will attack that which is of God. This is to be expected. But with faith in the protection of the Lord we must never lose hope, never lose courage. With great determination and enthusiasm we must simply go on with our service. In such a situation our service is according to the direction of the great souls, to fight for the truth. To fight for the truth is the necessity of every devotee according to whatever asharam he may be. The brahmanas fight for the truth through preaching, through bold preaching of what is truth and what is false and explaining who is who and what is what. “Acarya Upasanam” One who understands from the acaryas knows things as they are. So armed with the words of God, the brahmanas must fight ignorance and illusion.
The Kstriyas, the politicians, through diplomacy or through warfare, with weapons, with physical strength, they must fight to protect the truth. Fight to destroy ignorance and illusion.
The Vaisyas, they must also be constantly fighting for the truth. How do they fight? According to their propensity. They have material resources, they have often times, tremendous influence, they have expertise in manipulation, they must utilize all these propensities and variable resources they have to assist in this great battle of fight for the truth.
The Sudras, they are people who are naturally content as laborers. The legs are meant to serve all other parts of the body, by simply carrying out the orders and assisting the three other classes. They can be of great value in fighting for the truth. A devotee of the Lord who really and truely wants to make spiritual advancement must understand that it is a war. That the power, the forces of illusion, of ignorance, of corruption are constantly trying to destroy everything sacred within your own heart and all around you. And if you stand passively, you will be defeated. Therefore according to your natural inclination you must fight for the truth. But that battle must begin within our own hearts. You see if we are not fighting this battle within our own hearts, and if we try to fight this battle outside of ourselves, we will only cause a big mess. Therefore, Srila Prabhupada said “let me be the guru for the king”. In this way everyone will have proper understanding of what is the truth and every one can fight together, the forces of evil, the forces of ignorance, the forces of exploitation, quarrel and hypocrisy. This is the great need in this world. It begins when we fight that darkness and ignorance within our own hearts.
Om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya
Caksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah
I offer my obeisance respectfully to my spiritual master, because gurudev is, with the torch light of knowledge, dispelling the darkness of ignorance. So every person without guru is simply a part of the darkness, a part of the ignorance, is on the side of evil, evil with good intentions. It is a fact, even in war many of the soldiers who are representing evil, they are actually nice people, they are actually pious people. But somehow or the other they have been led they have been misdirected, and through that misdirection they are challenging what is sacred and good. So therefore, it is essential that we have pure spiritual guidance, and then we must fight. The holy name of God is most sublime weapon which destroys, defeats, always remains victorious over all the enemies of ignorance within us. There are six anarthas that are described in the sastras; lust, anger, envy, pride, greed and illusion. These six enemies are working within our hearts and they must be conquered. And the words of the great sadhus and the sound of the holy name can defeat all these anarthas, all these enemies within us. And then we can truly be part of solution to the great problem of hypocrisy and suffering in this world. And this is the great example of Maharaja Ambarisa. He had conquered these enemies within his own heart by humbly serving the great souls. Therefore he was fit to rule the entire world and guide all living beings in God’s loving service. When this world becomes the kingdom of God, full of prosperity, opulence, peace and bliss, and every living being after leaving this body will simply return to Krishna for eternal life in His loving pastimes.
Questions
A preacher concentrates on preaching to whoever open his heart to hear. Of course if a leader opens his heart to hear, you are preaching to millions through that one person. It is like in Bhudism, Emperor Ashok, he accepted the doctrine of Budha and as a result he changed the whole kingdom into Bhudism, everyone followed him. Similarly, in Christianity………… Rome at that time what Christian would call …….., they were against Christ, they were against Budhism, they were the enemies. They were the ones that murdered most of the original christrians. They were engaged in most barbaric activities. When this one king became Christian, the whole kingdom followed him. Malaysia used to be a Hindu Nation. But what happened is their conception of Hinduism was completely corrupt. There was no bonafide spiritual master guiding to understand what is Krishna’s will. They were simply worshiping this demigod, that demigod, all for material purposes. The king was preached to by one knowing the Islamic faith and the whole of the kingdom became Islamic. Now if such a king, or such a leader is actually being preached to by a pure devotee of the Lord or by the representative of the pure devotee of the Lord, and actually led the kingdom in pure devotional service, that is the greatest preaching in regard to the welfare of the masses. But you see in this age the world is very, most of the powerful dictators, they get in a position because they want to be god. It is very difficult to gain entrance and open heart to preach to them. In democratic societies unless you make the people Krishna conscious, …….. Krishna conscious leaders. Therefore, those personalities who have influence on others lives we should take great care to try to preach to them. Just like Srila Prabhupada said “if you make one college student a devotee of the Lord, that person will influence thousands and thousands of people lives because of his good intelligence. Therefore, Prabhupada said ”making one college student a devotee, sincere person, intelligent person, is equal to making one thousand devotees, because of his influence, he is empowered to influence others lives. So we must be very careful to always seek out the opportunity for such preaching. But at the same time every other class of men, it is their god given right to hear the message of the Lord and to give the opportunity for the absolute truth. Therefore, we must organize our preaching activity so that various devotees, according to their inclination, can reach all classes of men. Some devotees should be in the ghettos where the illiterate people are, giving them prasada and somehow or other getting them to chant the holy name and some how or other giving them the message of Godhead. Willing to give their lives for these people, that must be there. Other people who are more influential, should be approaching the politicians and leaders of the society, they will listen to them, try to convince them. Srila Prabhupada used to tell he developed this Bhakti Vedanta Institute of Scientists,…… people will get PHDs and preach to the Scientists. He said the scientists will never listen to a sadhu like me. They think I am just a sentimentalist. They will never listen to what I say. Unless you are a PHD and you a scientist they will take you seriously. So now you have these qualifications, preach to them. That is what they were doing. They gave their lives for that only. Those who have good intelligence, they must preach to the student class. They are the future of the whole society. Do you know that all 100% of next generations, politicians, leaders, doctors, lawyers, social workers, psychologists, all the people who are going to run the society are in the colleges today. And our minds are often little bit open. To those who have that inclination must keep their minds and not waste a moment to reach out to these people. Preaching means it is just like in the war you understand where the enemy’s different strengths are, and then different sections of your armies would attach their various places. Therefore we must organize our preaching so that every class of man is given the opportunity to receive the mercy of Krishna and be peaceful.
Question:
You must expect that. When you …….c war against illusion do you think that the illusion is not going to fight back. Maya is going to fight back. In fact Lord Nityanand is the xfriend of the most fallen. Do you think that it is coincidence that this attack of maya or illusion came after the day of His appearance. Actually this is the confirmation of the glory and the success of that festival. The devotees were so enthusiastic to appear for the mercy of Lord Nityananda that maya is getting scared. She knows that this temple is starting to have real potency. It is really a threat to the whole illusionary energy. These devotees are enthusiastically appealing to Lord Nityananda to work through them. If it was not a very potent festival, maya would just not take that Krishna is hearing our prayers of compassion for all fallen souls out there. He is empowering this temple and mayadevi, the illusionary energy and all her representatives are starting to take us a little more seriously.
Question…
Answer :- They were not attacking the bathroom so much, they were attacking the very existence of the devotees. It is a good sign. That means that we are being empowered by Krishna. That means maya is getting scared. Expect many attacks like that. But, it is guaranteed by Krishna “yatra yogeshwar Krishna, yatra patra dhanurdhar, wherever there is Krishna and Arjuna, there is certain to be victory, great opulence and justice. So we understand things as they are, we will not lose faith. Such situations will infact increase our faith many fold. Never in the history of the world has any spiritual person not been attacked by the illusory energy. When Chaitanya Maharaprabhu 1st started taking his devotees out on the streets, having His naam sankirtana, the forces of illusion attacked Him. Chand kazi went and threatened every devotee that if you ever go out in the streets chanting these names again, I will put you in jail, I am going to plunder all your wealth and I am going to put all your family also in jail. That is a very very fearful claim. Could you imagine if you were directly ordered in a violent, harsh, malicious way by the military themselves that if we ever see any of you out again chanting the holy names in the streets, you are going to jail instantly? There was no question of trials in those days. What the kazi said was the law. “Plunder all your wealth and put your family and children, everyone in prison that was the threat. And when some simple devotees were out, they took the mirdanga, smashed them in the ground and threatened that this is banned. That was the immediate result of Lord Chaitanya sending people out in the streets to chant. But with all their soldiers with their armies they could not conquer the sankirtana movement.
Lord Jesus was crucified only for preaching. Haridas Thakur was beaten in 22 market places only for preaching. But what is the result? In Jesus’s crucifixion practically the whole world became Christians. Almost 3/4th of the world practically took his teachings seriously because of that and Haridas Thakur is glorified for his tolerance and his greatness and even the persons who beat him, when they saw how miraculously humble he was, they converted and chanted the holy names of Krishna. And then the story of the Chand Kazi also, he became a devotee in the end. So in every situation if the truth is purely being presented you can always think that there will certainly be a reaction of opposition from those who represent illusion. Even Srila Prabhupada said, when he 1st came to America he told us if your American government knew what I was teaching when I first came to the country, they would have killed me. He said because what I am teaching will totally dismantle the very basis of the whole civilization, sense gratification. In America, the devotees are being attacked like anything. To the degree they are out preaching to that degree they are going to be attacked by Maya. But, as they are being attacked they are becoming more and more enthusiastic, more and more empowered and they are always being protected. Jesus said the world hated me and if you follow me the world will hate you. And if the world does not hate you, you are not following me, it is all a show. The eternal truth is that always there are 2 forces, the divine and the demoniac natures and they are always in opposition to one another. Even in Satyuga, Hiranyakashipu and Prahlad, father and son were at war. Prahlad was humble but Hiranyakashipu is incessantly attacking him and trying to destroy him because he represented the truth and Hiranyakashipu knew that if the truth prevails all of my sinful and evil motivations will be impossible to fulfill. There was one famous lecture of Srila Prabhupada. He said when the whole world becomes God conscious, we will propagate no illicit sex, no intoxication, no gambling, no meat eating and the demons will die because they cannot live without these things. At least their demoniac intelligence, that will die. It is not that physically they will die but their demoniac propensities must die and if they don’t, then they will physically die because they cannot live without sinful life. So these attacks of maya confirm the faith of the devotees of the Lord. Thank you very much.
