krishna/articles/2011/253

One who possesses the full opulence of richness. One who possesses all the powers, all the influence, all beauty, all knowledge, all renunciation, that is Bhagavan. So you haven't got to think very ser... You take the formula given in the Vedas. That is perfect knowledge. You understand everything. Therefore the intelligent man, they follow the Vedic injunction. Then the knowledge is perfect. It is already there.

So bhagavan uvaca. So when Bhagavan is speaking -- atha te sampravaksyami tattvanam -- of the truth, laksanam, characteristic... Everyone has to understand anything by the characteristic. Just like in the chemical laboratory... If you send something just for chemical analysis just to see whether it is pure, so they have got in their authorized book, Pharmacopeia, the characteristics. The soda bicarb, its characteristic is like this; its taste is like this; it is formed like this, granules or powder or so many things. They analyze. And when the characteristics are accumulated, then they examine: "Yes. It is this." Similarly, you have to accept God from the characteristics, by analysis. Not that any rascal comes and says, "I'm Bhagavan." You must know, have to analyze Bhagavan. That is there in the sastra. This word Bhagavan is used not loosely. It has got many characteristics.

Just like Krsna said when he was present, He said, mattah parataram nanyat: [Bg. 7.7] "Nobody's superior than Me." He proved it. So long Krsna was on the planet, he proved it, that no one superior. Even from ordinary life as grhastha... Krsna was grhastha, householder. Now he married 16,108 wives. So who has got this potency to marry sixteen thousand? One wife... It is very difficult to maintain one wife. One lady in America, she had a grown-up son. So I asked her, "Why don't you get your son married?" "I have no objection if he can maintain wife here. I have no objection." Then I understood that it is very difficult to maintain wife here. And actually it is difficult to... Even from material point of view, Krsna, as far as we can calculate, we cannot conceive even at the present moment to maintain more than one wife or two wife. But He was maintaining sixteen thousand wives, 16,108.

But, because we have no conception of God, we take it, "This is all fictitious. God..." When God gives His reality, identification, and it is recorded in the sastra, not by any loafer class writer but like Vyasadeva, and we take it fictitious. Just see our position-Vyasadeva has bothered his brain to write something fictitious! Just see how low-grade persons we are! We don't believe writing of Vyasadeva. Or sometimes we say, "No, no, this was not written by Vyasadeva. It is interpretation." If it is interpretation, then why the acaryas have accepted? They're also fools-Ramanujacarya, Madhvacarya, Visnu Svami... They have made commentary on the Srimad-Bhagavatam, and they mention, they have accepted, "Yes. Krsna has sixteen thousand wives." So Vyasadeva has written and the acaryas have accepted. Then I have become such a great scholar that I say it is fictitious. And we have to believe these rascals.

So don't go to rascal. If you want real knowledge, take it from Bhagavan. bhagavan uvaca. Then your knowledge is perfect. That is our process. We, we have taken Bhagavad-gita as it is, and we are preaching. We don't preach anything else which Bhagavan does not say. Bhagavan says, man-mana bhava mad-bhakto mad-yaji mam... [Bg. 18.65]. We are canvassing, "My dear sir, you just become a devotee of Krsna. You always think of Krsna." Krsna says, man-mana bhava mad-bhaktah. We say, "You just think of Krsna." The same thing. There is no change. We do not interpret any way, "This man-manah means this, and mad-bhaktah means that." No. We don't do that. We present as it is. Therefore if Krsna sees that "One is presenting My message as I have given," then He is pleased. Therefore, it is said, kintu prabhor yah priya eva tasya. He has become very dear because he does not, nonsensically, he does not nonsensically change the meaning, that "This meaning's that, this meaning's that." Why? When Krsna has said, that is everything perfect. Why should I change it? That is guru-priya. Suppose if you say something and if somebody takes it as it is and behaves like that, then you become pleased. And if you say to your son or to your servant something and he misunderstand and talks something else, then he becomes angry: "What this nonsense has understood?" Similarly, a guru does not change the word of Krsna. Therefore he's called Bhagavan, servant Bhagavan. Krsna is the master Bhagavan, master God, and the guru, who is serving Krsna sincerely, he's the servant God. Therefore sastra says, saksad-dharitvena samasta-sastrair uktas tatha bhavyata eva sadbhih **. In the morning also these boys, they sing Narottama dasa Thakura, ara na koriho mane asa. If you have got a pure, bona fide guru, then whatever he says, you do it. You don't think of anything else, ara na koriho mane asa. No more. That is all right.

Ref: Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.26.1 -- Bombay, December 13, 1974.