HH KKS: Maharaja Bharata made a mistake it said…..Alright..but…. What was the mistake? So let us begin with the beginning …where did it start the mistake? In pulling the deer out of the water or not?...That is my question?...
Devotee speaks: Ghandhaki river is one of the holy rivers so maybe the dear would have got liberation leaving his body in that river….or maybe later he should not have got that much attached , maybe that mistake was on the later part.
HH KKS: Hah..Ok…Yah..that’s a good answer….yes I tend to agree with this point that …………Leaving aside it was the Ghandaki and it was a holy river..leaving that aside for a moment …because we are looking at Maharaja Bharata as an example ….and I can paint another scenario ..what if you are going for a japa walk along the beach right?.....and there is a little child lying there…it’s early morning, no one is in sight and there is this little baby lying there on the beach …it’s not a deer..it’s a human being , what are you going to do?..Are you saying Jaya.. a new brahmacari for the ashrama! Or are you saying this is just some soul who is destined to drown ? ..So..i am amplyifying this situation a bit to something that could happen to us ..then the question becomes more relevant..right..and I think we should take this chapter as something that applies to us …something that could happen …whether it is a deer , a child…an external situation where a living entity who is helpless, dependent on, to be saved from a materially dangerous situation…should we act or not?
Certainly it was not a mistake for Bharata Maharaja to save the deer..even to afterwards save the deer by supplying some food stuff and taking some time ..was not a mistake …although that began to diminish his spiritual activities and therefore that had to be minimised as much as possible…but even some entanglement in caring for other entities in itself is not an impediment for spiritual progress….We know even householders who are terribly entangled compared to Bharata Maharaja..that they also can attain perfection in spiritual life ..although there is a risk… there certainly is a risk to be distracted in the same way as Bharata Mahraja became distracted ……………so the essential fault ..or the essential mistake was that Bharata Maharaja began to neglect his spiritual practices …That was the Fundamental Mistake………for which he ultimately had to become entangled in the material energy and then the cause of his neglect was the deer and he went beyond taking care of the deer………he became deeply emotionally involved with the deer and that lead to him deriving so much pleasure from the relationship with that deer that …that pleasure went to take over from otherwise the pleasure of worshipping the Supreme Lord.The most amazing feature of this chapter maybe that Maharaja Bharata was described to be in Bhava..or in a state of most exalted devotional service …in a state of deep emotional involvement in his devotional service ..in a state where he had great taste ..great taste from moment to moment in his spiritual practices and great eagerness to always see the Lord …………………..So one can see from such an advanced stage of devotional service ..a living entity again can become bewildered …this is the constitutional nature of the living being ..for being the…marginal energy…that potentially the living entity can always fall prone to the material energy.
Prabhupada says due to the littleness of his existence or Prabhupada also says Lord Krishna is Acutya, He is infallible …Acutya being infallible will never fall down ..but the living entity potentially because he is merely a spark …Krishna is like the fire and the living being is like a spark …so a spark due to his insignificance, where it is in contact with the fire …will also burn like fire ……………But when it is not in contact with the fire ..will no longer burn like fire and will become extinguished.
So potentially the living being can extinguish it’s natural Krishna consciousness and leave it’s natural condition to an artificial state of consciousness….Just as water has various forms in which it can exist …for example in it’s ordinary liquid form or in the form of ice and when it exists in the form of ice it can again return to it’s natural state of water …fluid state of water ….but as ice it is not acting like water ..it has a whole different nature and effect.So in the same way in the conditioned state the living being has totally different features than in it’s original state and in it’s conditioned state the living entity is fundamentally in a state of never being fulfilled ..of always being searching and seeking for happiness. Where as in the spiritual world there is constant ecstasy and fulfilment and of course also seeking for further ecstasy, eternally increasing and eternally continuing. (More in part 3)
