Hare Krsna,
I have been meditating on the first three verses of Lord Brahma’s prayers:
SB 3.9.1: Lord Brahmā said: O my Lord, today, after many, many years of penance, I have come to know about You. Oh, how unfortunate the embodied living entities are that they are unable to know Your personality! My Lord, You are the only knowable object because there is nothing supreme beyond You. If there is anything supposedly superior to You, it is not the Absolute. You exist as the Supreme by exhibiting the creative energy of matter.
SB 3.9.2: The form which I see is eternally freed from material contamination and has advented to show mercy to the devotees as a manifestation of internal potency. This incarnation is the origin of many other incarnations, and I am born from the lotus flower grown from Your navel home.
SB 3.9.3: O my Lord, I do not see a form superior to Your present form of eternal bliss and knowledge. In Your impersonal Brahman effulgence in the spiritual sky, there is no occasional change and no deterioration of internal potency. I surrender unto You because whereas I am proud of my material body and senses, Your Lordship is the cause of the cosmic manifestation and yet You are untouched by matter.
I could see that these verses have similarities with the very first verse of SB – SB 1.1.1 – janmady asya yatah as described below:
My Lord, You are the only knowable object because there is nothing supreme beyond You.
- He is directly and indirectly conscious of all manifestations, and He is independent because there is no other cause beyond Him. (SB 1.1.1)
The form which I see is eternally freed from material contamination
- I therefore meditate upon Him, Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, who is eternally existent in the transcendental abode, which is forever free from the illusory representations of the material world. (SB 1.1.1)
Your Lordship is the cause of the cosmic manifestation and yet You are untouched by matter.
- He is the Absolute Truth and the primeval cause of all causes of the creation, sustenance and destruction of the manifested universes. He is directly and indirectly conscious of all manifestations, and He is independent because there is no other cause beyond Him. (SB 1.1.1)
If there is anything supposedly superior to You, it is not the Absolute.
- I meditate upon Him, for He is the Absolute Truth. (SB 1.1.1)
The key lessons for me from this lesson are:
- The Lord’s illusory energy is extremely captivating. It is not only captivating but also distracting from our goal of Krsna consciousness. Lord. Under illusion, the general mass of people deny the existence of the Supreme Lord and accept the foolish products of illusory energy as supreme.
- The Supreme Lord can be known only by His mercy invoked by sincere devotional service unto Him practiced in accordance with the teachings of disciplic succession.
- Penance and austerities are important and fruitful as long as they are practiced to satisfy the Supreme Lord. By acts of penance only was Lord Brahmā able to see the Garbhodakaśāyī Viṣṇu, and by realization only could he understand the Lord as He is.
- Human life is wasted if it is not used to realize the Supreme Absolute Truth (srama eva hi kevalam). It is imperative that every human being try for such knowledge, and if anyone does not do so, his life is spoiled.
- The easiest way to understand the Supreme Lord is by approaching His pure devotees who always have the Lord in their hearts.
- We can revive our eternal relationship with the Lord by the process of devotional service. The relationship of the pure devotees with the Lord develops because of devotional service to the Lord on the authentic basis of Vedic authority.
- This highest stage of relationship with the Lord can be attained simply by hearing about Him (His name, form, quality, etc.) from authentic sources like Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, recited by pure, unalloyed devotees of the Lord.
- Simply by chanting and hearing the glories and pastimes of the Lord, one can obtain total freedom from the cares and anxieties of material existence.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
Krsna Katha 