Hare Krsna,
Chapter 8 explains the manifestation of Lord Brahma from Garbhodakasayi Visnu. The highlight of the chapter is Brahma’s beautiful darshan of Lord Garbhodakasayi Visnu. Visnu was looking splendorous with His shining bodily luster, ornaments, moonlike toenails, yellow cloth, Srivatsa mark on the chest and so on. He acknowledged the service of His devotees with His enchanting smile that vanquished their distress.
In the next chapter, Brahma began to offer heartfelt prayers to the Lord seeking empowerment to carry out his service of creation from the ingredients created by the Lord already. In brief, Brahma prayed, “O Lord, You are the supreme knowable object having the most auspicious form. You dwell in the hearts of those devotees who smell the aroma of Your lotus feet and see You in their favorite forms, through their ears (i.e., by hearing the scriptures). Please protect me from the false pride of being the creator. May I not get deviated from the Vedic injunctions. You are unlimitedly merciful. Please bestow Your benedictions upon me by opening Your lotus eyes.” (SB 3.9.1-5)
Lesson: We must pray for empowerment to serve the Lord and be fearful of maya in the form of false pride and deviation from transcendental teachings.
Brahma then explained the predicament of the conditioned souls (how misidentification with ‘I’ and ‘Mine’ causes anxiety). He offers obeisances to the merciful holy name.
“Let me take shelter of the lotus feet of Him whose incarnations, qualities and activities are mysterious imitations of worldly affairs. One who invokes His transcendental names, even unconsciously, at the time he quits this life, is certainly washed immediately of the sins of many, many births and attains Him without fail.” (SB 3.9.15)
Lord Visnu speaks to Brahma, “Do not be anxious and depressed about the execution of creation. By performing austerity, you will receive My favor and thus understand within your heart, everything you need to know about creating all the universal manifestations. Since your mind is fixed on Me, passion with not bind you. I quickly fulfill all the desires of one who prays regularly like you. Following My instructions, you may now generate the living beings as they had existed before in various bodily forms.
Lesson: All we need is willingness and sincerity to serve the Lord. We must pray for empowerment. The Lord gives us the necessary empowerment to serve.
Chapters 10 and 11 are quite technical in nature and talk about the sequence of creation beginning from the fourteen worlds, characteristics and division of time, ten types of creation and so on.
Chapter 12 explains Brahma’s creation of five features of ignorance, creation of the four Kumaras, creation of Rudra, and so on. One special episode in this chapter is the Vak episode when during his creative affairs, Brahma once got attracted to his daughter Vak, though she wasn’t welcoming of his advances. Seeing Brahma deluded in this way, his sons headed by Marici, prayed to the Supreme Lord. Eventually Brahma came to his senses and felt ashamed of delusional state. He gave up this shameful mentality and felt remorseful.
This has an important lesson for us. The above incident demonstrates the strength of sexual impulse and emphasizes the need to be prayerful to the Lord for protection from lust. Despite this episode, one shouldn’t minimize the position of Lord Brahma or disrespect him. Brahma’s power of creation in the service of the Supreme Lord did not diminish due to his momentary distraction. He was a soul surrendered to Krsna and engaged in His service.
Lesson: The status of exalted personalities is not diminished by apparent transgression of morality. The Lord sometimes imparts important lessons to us through them. It teaches us that one could be victimized by the attraction to opposite gender at any time in this world, so one needs to be extremely cautious and take shelter of the Lord at all times.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
Krsna Katha 