Bhagavad-gītā 4.5 – February 13, 1974, Vṛndāvana
[poor recording]
Pradyumna: [leads chanting, devotees repeat] Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya. Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya.
Prabhupāda: No other copies? Yes?
bahūni me vyatītāni janmāni tava cārjuna tāny ahaṁ veda sarvāṅi na tvaṁ vettha parantapa [Bg 4.5]
[The Blessed Lord said: Many, many births both you and I have passed. I can remember all of them, but you cannot, O subduer of the enemy!]
Find that verse.
Pradyumna: [leads chanting, etc.]
śrī-bhagavān uvāca bahūni me vyatītāni janmāni tava cārjuna tāny ahaṁ veda sarvāṅi na tvaṁ vettha parantapa [Bg 4.5]
śrī-bhagavān uvāca—the Personality of Godhead said; bahūni—many; me—of Mine; vyatītāni—have passed; janmāni—births; tava—of yours; ca—and also; arjuna—O Arjuna; tāni—all those; aham—I; veda—do know; sarvāṅi—all; na—not; tvam—yourself; vettha—know; parantapa—O subduer of the enemy.
[03:45]
Translation: “The Blessed Lord said: Many, many births both you and I have passed. I can remember all of them, but you cannot, O subduer of the enemy!”
Prabhupāda: So, bhagavān uvāca. The Supreme Personality of Godhead says that the distinction between God and the living entities. The rascal philosophers, they think that they are equal to God, but God does not say that “You are equal to Me.” What does He say? God says, mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat [Bg 7.7]:
[O conqueror of wealth [Arjuna], there is no Truth superior to Me. Everything rests upon Me, as pearls are strung on a thread.]
“There is nobody superior than Me or equal to Me.” Therefore His name is Asamordhva: “Nobody is equal nor higher than Me.” Therefore God is there; that is the meaning of God is there. If God has anyone equal to Him or greater than Him, then what kind of God He is? Ask these rascals’ God, the so-called God, “Do you think if anyone is equal or higher than you?” If he says, “Nobody is higher than me,” then anyone can insulted him, anyone can arrest him. How he can say that nobody is higher than him? So therefore, particularly, particularly the word Bhagavān, nobody can be equal or greater than the Supreme Person, and foolish persons should be kept as absolute, not relative. He says, “Arjuna, the difference between you and Me—that you forget; I do not forget.” That is it.
God knows past, future and present—everything. Just like the sun is there in the sky, and this earthly planet is here. So the earthly planet is rotating, and the sun is there on the head of the earthly planet. So our, this rotating means day and night, but the sun planet has no day and night; no past, present or future—everything is present. It is a commonsense example: the sun planet is rotating where it is. The sun is back side it is night, and the front side it is day—so day and night for us, not for the sun. Similarly, Kṛṣṅa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is compared with the sun: kṛṣṅa—sūrya-sama; māyā haya andhakāra [Cc Madhya 22.31].
[Kṛṣṅa is compared to sunshine, and māyā is compared to darkness. Wherever there is sunshine, there cannot be darkness. As soon as one takes to Kṛṣṅa consciousness, the darkness of illusion (the influence of the external energy) will immediately vanish.]
And our this darkness is a māyā, because actually there is no darkness. The sun is always there, but on account of position of the earth, we are thinking this is night, this is day. In the material creation the sun, in the biggest of all planets, there is no such thing as māyā, or night. So why Kṛṣṅa would have māyā?
But this Māyāvadi says that when God comes, He also takes the material body. That is called Māyāvāda. But God does not say. He says, sambhavāmy ātma-māyayā [Bg 4.6],
[Although I am unborn and My transcendental body never deteriorates, and although I am the Lord of all sentient beings, I still appear in every millennium in My original transcendental form.]
“By My own spiritual potency,” not by the force of material potency. Because we accept this body by force.
prakṛteḥ kriyamāṅāni guṅaiḥ karmāṅi sarvaśaḥ ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā iti manyate [Bg 3.27]
[The bewildered spirit soul, under the influence of the three modes of material nature, thinks himself to be the doer of activities, which are in actuality carried out by nature.]
Kartāham iti manyate. I am not kartā; I am being forced by the material nature. I am forced by material nature why? Because I am associating with the modes of material nature:
kāraṅaṁ guṅa-saṅgo ’sya sad-asad-yoni-janmasu [Bg 13.22]
I am forced to take birth as this human being or as cat, as dog, as tree, as demigod, as beast—so many, 8,400,000 forms. I am associating, just like I am contaminating some disease, and I am forced to accept the effect of such contamination. Everyone knows; this is medical science. Similarly, kāraṅaṁ guṅa-saṅgo ’sya: we are associating with goodness, associating with passion, associating with ignorance, and according to the association we are getting a body, sad-asad-yoni-janmasu, higher or lower grade of birth. That is not in my hand. It is in my hand because I am infected a certain type of quality of the material nature, and nature is offering me the similar body. It is not nature's fault. If I am getting degraded body, degraded life, that is my fault. That is my fault.
Therefore, when you have got senses or developed consciousness we should associate with goodness and transcendental to goodness. Goodness is brahminical qualification, and transcendental to goodness is Vaiṣṅava quality—above the brāhmaṅas. Brahmaṅo hi pratiṣṭhāham [Bg 14.27].
brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā na śocati na kāṅkṣati mad-bhaktiṁ labhate parām [Bg 18.54]
[And of all yogīs, he who always abides in Me with great faith, worshiping Me in transcendental loving service, is most intimately united with Me in yoga and is the highest of all.]
After acquiring the qualification of a brāhmaṅa—satya, śama, dama, titikṣā—one is raised to the platform of a Vaiṣṅava; therefore a Vaiṣṅava is already a brāhmaṅa. So our fault is that because we are living entities… Aṅor aṅīyān mahato mahīyān [Kaṭha Upaniṣad 1.2.20]:
[Greater than the greatest, smaller than the smallest.]
Kṛṣṅa is greater than the greatest, and we are smaller than the smallest, because our identity, spiritual identity, is very, very small: one-ten thousandth part of the upper portion tip of the hair.
keśāgra-śata-bhāgasya śatāṁśa-sadṛśātmakaḥ [Cc Madhya 19.140]
[If we divide the tip of a hair into a hundred parts and then take one of these parts and divide it again into a hundred parts, that very fine division is the size of but one of the numberless living entities. They are all cit-kaṅa, particles of spirit, not matter.]
Very, very small. Therefore we are prone to be fallen down. But Kṛṣṅa, being the greater than the greatest, He is not known to be; therefore His name is Acyuta, “who never falls.” His another name is Acyuta. There is a quotation from Brahma-saṁhitā,
advaitam acyutam anādim ananta-rūpam ādyaṁ purāṅa-puruṣaṁ nava-yauvanaṁ ca vedeṣu durlabham adurlabham ātma-bhaktau govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi [Bs 5.33]
[I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, who is inaccessible to the Vedas, but obtainable by pure unalloyed devotion of the soul, who is without a second, who is not subject to decay, is without a beginning, whose form is endless, who is the beginning, and the eternal puruṣa; yet He is a person possessing the beauty of blooming youth.]
Kṛṣṅa’s another name, Govinda's another name, is Acyuta. Acyuta means “who never falls,” falls down. He never becomes conditioned by māyā. He is always above, and because He’s above māyā, therefore He says that,
bahūni me janmāni janmāni tava cārjuna tāny ahaṁ veda na tvaṁ vettha parantapa [Bg 4.5]
So that is the difference; that is the difference—because He does not change His form. You can understand very easily: we forget because we change our bodies. Our yesterday's body and today's body, not the same. Then how we are getting old? If my yesterday's body is the same as today's body, then how I can be called getting old? So we are changing body every moment; that is scientific, medical science. So because we are changing body, therefore we forget, and Kṛṣṅa says, tāny ahaṁ veda sarvāṅi [Bg 4.5]: but He remembers, or He knows everything as it is; therefore He does not change. Where is the difficulty to understand between Kṛṣṅa’s body and my body?
Here it is said that “My dear Arjuna, you are My personal associate. You and Me, both of us, we are check every time body, or transmigrated,” but Kṛṣṅa is Paramātmā. Ātmā and Paramātmā, they live together, so when the ātmā changes body, Paramātmā also changes body—but He remains in His own body. He goes with the ātmā, but He does not change His body. But the change of body is of the jivātmā. Vāsāṁsi jīrṅāni yathā vihāya [Bg 2.22]. Therefore He remembers. This is the simple logic. Kṛṣṅa says that tāny ahaṁ veda sarvāṅi: “I remember.” Because his question was that,
aparaṁ bhavato janma paraṁ janma vivasvataḥ [Bg 4.4]
“Vivasvān, the sun-god, was born long, long ago, millions of years ago, and You are born just recently. How I can understand that You taught this philosophy to the sun-god?” The answer is that “Yes, now you see that I am contemporary to you by birth.” Therefore the next verse you will see, janma karma me divyam [Bg 4.9]:
[One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna.]
“But My birth and your birth is not the same.”
Just like the sunrise. This is also morning; it is the birth of the sun. Another child is also born in the same morning. But the birth of the sun and the birth of the child is not the same. You can understand: the sun was already there in the sky, but when the planet turns we come in front of the sun, although the sun has not taken birth. It is not that because the sun rises from the eastern side, it does not mean that eastern side is the mother of the sun; it appears like that. Similarly, Kṛṣṅa, although appears as the son of Devaki, He is not a child of ordinary mother or an ordinary child. Janma karma ca me divyam. If this secret one can understand, that Kṛṣṅa’s birth and my birth is not the same; Kṛṣṅa’s activities and my activities are not the same; Kṛṣṅa’s position and my position is not the same… Kṛṣṅa says that,
janma karma ca me divyam, evaṁ yo vetti tattvataḥ [Bg 4.9]
[One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna.]
Not by the fools: “Oh, I know Kṛṣṅa. He is [indistinct] popular. His father [indistinct].” Not that. Beyond that; beyond that knowledge—divyam. Kṛṣṅa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. He has no birth nor death. He appears and disappears in a different way, in a transcendental way, divyam. In this way, if we can understand Kṛṣṅa, then we become liberated, immediately.
tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti so 'rjuna [Bg 4.9]
So here bhagavān uvāca… First of all He is Bhagavān, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Vyāsadeva never said kṛṣṅa uvāca, because he knows Kṛṣṅa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Bhagavān. Therefore when Kṛṣṅa says, he says bhagavān uvāca, but when Arjuna says, he says arjuna uvāca. He does not say Bhagavān. That Bhagavān is Kṛṣṅa, so bhagavān uvaca. So Bhagavān. Why…, what is the meaning of all this Kṛṣṅa consciousness movement? Because we accept Kṛṣṅa as the supreme authority. As the other day the Russian representative at Delhi, I was speaking to him, that “You accept a leader like Lenin, and we accept Kṛṣṅa as the leader. Now where is the difference of our philosophy?” We have to accept one leader, whatever political creed you follow. You have to accept one leader; that is a fact. Without accepting a leader you cannot propagate your political philosophy. So in philosophy there is no difference, either in the Communist or this, association [indistinct] Congress, so many other political parties. One has to accept. In every action one has... [end]
