TEXT 17
तस्य कमा॔ण्युदाराणि परिगीतानि सूरिभिः।
ब्रूहि नः श्रधधानानां लीलया दघतः कलाः॥१७॥
TRANSLATION
His transcendental acts are magnificent and gracious, and great learned sages like Narada sing of them. Please, therefore, speak to us, who are eager to hear about His adventures which He performs in His various incarnations.
PURPORT
The Personality of Godhead is never inactive as some less intelligent persons suggest. His works are magnificent and magnanimous. His creations both material and spiritual are all wonderful and contain all variegatedness. They are described nicely by such liberated souls as Srila Narada, Vyasa, Valmiki, Devala, Asita, Madhva, Sri Caitanya, Ramanuja, Visnuvami, Nimbarka, Sridhara, Visvanatha, Baladeva, Bhaktivinide, Siddhanta Sarasvati and many other learned and self-realized souls.
These creations, both material and spiritual realm is more magnificent due to its being full of knowledge, bliss and eternity. The material creations are manifested for some time as perverted shadows of the spiritual kingdom and can be likened to cinemas. They attract people of less intelligent caliber who are attracted by false things. Such foolish men have no information of the reality, and they take it for granted that the false material manifestation is the all in all.
But more intelligent men guided by sages like Vyasa and Narada know that the eternal kingdom of God is more delightful, larger, and eternally full of bliss and knowledge. Those who are not conversant with the activities of the Lord and His transcendental realm are sometimes favored by the Lord in His adventures as incarnations wherein He displays the eternal bliss of His association in the transcendental realm.
By such activities He attracts the conditioned souls of the material world. Some of these conditioned souls are engaged in the false enjoyment of material senses and others in simply negating their real life in the spiritual world.
These less intelligent persons are known as karmis or fruitive workers, and the others are known as jnanis or dry mental speculators. But above these two classes of men is the transcendentalist known as satvata or the devotee who is neither busy with rampant material activity nor with material speculation. He is engaged in the positive service of the Lord, and thereby, he drives the highest spiritual benefit unknown to the karmis and jnanis.
As the supreme controller of both the material and spiritual worlds, the Lord has different incarnations of unlimited categories. Incarnations like Brahma, Rudra, Manu, Prthu, Vyasa and so on are His material qualitative incarnations, but His incarnations like Rama, Narasimha, Varaha, Vamana, and so on are His transcendental incarnations. Lord Sri Krsna is the fountainhead of all incarnations, and He is therefore the cause of all causes.
TEXT 18
अथाख्याहि हरेधी॔मनतारकथाः शुभाः।
लीला विदधतः स्वैरमीश्र्वरस्यात्ममायया॥१८॥
TRANSLATION
O wise Suta, please narrate to us the transcendental pastimes of the Supreme Godhead's multi-incarnations. Such auspicious adventures and pastimes of the Lord are performed by His internal powers.
PURPORT
For the creation, maintenance, and destruction of the material worlds, the Supreme Lord Personality of Godhead Himself appears in many thousands of forms of incarnations, and the specific adventures found in those transecendental forms are all auspicious. Both those who are present during such activities and those who hear the transcendental narrations of such activities are benefited.
TEXT 19
वयं तु न वितृप्याम उत्तमश्र्लोकविक्रमे।
यच्छृण्वतां रसज्ञानां स्वादु पदे पदे॥१९॥
TRANSLATION
We never tire of hearing the transcendental pastimes of the Personality of Godhead who is glorified by hymns and prayers. Those who enjoy association with Him relish hearing of His pastimes at very moment.
PURPORT
There is a great difference between mundane stories, fiction, or history and the transcendental pastimes of the Lord. The histories of the whole universe contain references to the pastimes of the incarnations of the Lord. The Ramayana, Mahabharata, and the Puranas are histories of bygone ages recorded in connection with the pastimes of the incarnations of the Lord and therefore remain fresh even after repeated readings.
For example, any one may read Bhagavad-gita or the Srimad-Bhagavatam repeatedly throughout his whole life and yet find in them new light of information. Mundane news is static whereas transcendental news is dynamic, inasmuch as the spirit is dynamic and matter is static.
Those who have developed a taste for understanding the transcendental subject matter are never tired of hearing such narrations. One is quickly satiated by mundane activities, but no one is satisfied by transcendental or devotional activities. Uttamasloka indicates that literature which is not meant for nescience..
Mundane literature is in the mode of darkness or ignorance, whereas transcendental literature is quite different. Transcendental literature is above the mode of darkness, and its light becomes more luminous with progressive reading and realization of the transcendental subject matter. The so-called liberated persons are never satisfied by the repetition of the words aham brahmasmi. Such artificial realization of Brahman becomes hackneyed, and so to relish real pleasure they turn to the narrations of the Srimad-Bhagavatam.
Those who are not so fortunate turn to altruism and worldly philanthropy. This means the Mayavada philosophy is mundane, whereas the philosophy of Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam is transcendental.
TEXT 20
कृतवान् किल कमा॔णि सह रामेण केशवः।
अतिमत्या॔नि भगवान् गूढः कपटमानुषः॥२०॥
TRANSALTION
Lord Sri Krsna, the Personality of Godhead, and Balarama played like human beings, and so masked They performed many superhuman acts.
PURPORT
The doctrines of anthropomorphism or that of zoomorphism are never applicable to Sri Krsna or the Personality of Godhead. The theory that a man becomes God by dint of penance and austerities is very much rampant nowadays, especially in India.
Since, Lord Rama, Lord Krsna, and Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu were detected by the sages and saints to be thee Personality of Godhead as indicated in revealed scriptures, many unscrupulous men have created their own incarnations. This process of concocting an incarnation of God has become an ordinary business, especially in Bengal.
Any popular personality with a few traits of mystic powers will display some feat of jugglery and easily become an incarnation of Godhead by popular vote. Lord Sri Krsna was not that of incarnation. He was actually the Personality of Godhead from the very beginning of His appearance.
He appeared before His so-called mother as four-armed Visnu. Then at the request of the mother, He became like a human child and at once left her for another devotee at Gokula where He was accepted as the son of Nanda Maharaja and Yasoda Mata. Similarly, Sri Baladeva, the counterpart of Lord Sri Krsna, was also considered a human child born of another wife of Sri Vasudeva.
In Bhagavad-gita, the Lord says that His borth and deeds are transcendental and that anyone who is so fortunate as to know the transcendental nature of His birth and deeds will at once become liberated and eligible to return to the kingdom of God.
So knowledge of the trancendental nature of the birth and deeds of Lord Sri Krsna is sufficient for liberation. In the Bhagavatam, the transcendental nature of the Lord is described in nine cantos, and in the Tenth Canto His specific pastimes are taken up. All this becomes known as one's reading of this literature progresses. It is important to note here, however, that the Lord exhibited His divinity even from the lap of His mother, that His deeds are all superhuman(He lifted Govardhana Hill at the age of six), and that all these acts definitely prove Him to be actually the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Yet, due to His mystic covering, He was always accepted as an ordinary human child by His so-called father and mother and other relatives.
Whenever some herculean task was performed by Him, the father and mother took it otherwise. And they remained satisfied with unflinching filial love for their son. As such, the sages of Naimisaranya describe Him as apparently resembling a human being, but actually He is the Supreme Almighty Personality of Godhead.
TEXT 21
कलिमागतमाज्ञाय क्षेत्रेऽस्मिन् वैष्णवे वयम्।
आसीना दीघ॔सत्रेण कथायां सक्षणा हरेः॥२१॥
TRANSLATION
Knowing well that the Age of Kali had already begun, we are assembled here in this holy place to hear at great length the transcendental message of God and in this way perform sacrifice.
PURPORT
This age of Kali is not at all suitable for self-realization as was Satya-yuga, the golden age, or treta or Dvapara yugas, the silver and copper ages. For self-realization, the people in Satya-yuga, living a lifetime of a hundred thousand years, were able to perform prolonged meditation. And in Treta-yuga, when the duration of life was ten thousand years, self-realization was attained by performance of great sacrifice.
And in the Dvapara-yuga when the duration of life was for one thousand years, self-realization was attained by worshipping the Lord. But in the Kali-yua, the maximum duration of life being one hundred years only and that combined with various difficulties, the process of self-realization is recommended by hearing and chanting of the holy name, fame and pastimes of the Lord.
The sages of Naimisaranya began this process for the devotees of the Lord. So they prepared themselves to hear the pastimes of the Lord over a period of one thousand years. By the example of these sages one should learn that regular hearing and recitation of the Bhagavatam is the only way for self-realization. Other attempts are simply a waste of time, for they do not give any tangible results.
Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu preached this system of Bhagavata-dharma, and He recommended that all those who were born in India should take the responsibility of broadcasting the messages of Lord Sri Krsna, primarily the message of Bhagavad-gita. And when one is well established in the teaching of Bhagavad-gita, he can take up the study of Srimad-Bhagavatam for further enlightenment in self-realization.