TO REMEMBER: ALWAYS PREPARING AND SPEAKING WITH ABSOLUTE REVERANCE…

Hare Krishna. Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. All glories to Sri
Guru and Sri Gauranga. Thank you all so much for the opportunity to serve by trying to speak on this
most wonderful topic today on Krishna and His dear devotee, Bhismadeva. I pray for all your
blessings to do justice to this class.

om namo bhagavate vasudevaya x 3

BG 10.7

etāṁ vibhūtiṁ yogaṁ ca

mama yo vetti tattvataḥ
so ’vikalpena yogena
yujyate nātra saṁśayaḥ

One who is factually convinced of this opulence and mystic power of Mine engages in unalloyed
devotional service; of this there is no doubt.

Purport

The highest summit of spiritual perfection is knowledge of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Unless one is firmly convinced of the different opulences of the Supreme Lord, he cannot engage in
devotional service. Generally people know that God is great, but they do not know in detail how God
is great. Here are the details. If one knows factually how God is great, then naturally he becomes a
surrendered soul and engages himself in the devotional service of the Lord. When one factually
knows the opulences of the Supreme, there is no alternative but to surrender to Him. This factual
knowledge can be known from the descriptions in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and Bhagavad-gītā and
similar literatures.

In the administration of this universe there are many demigods distributed throughout the planetary
system, and the chief of them are Brahmā, Lord Śiva and the four great Kumāras and the other
patriarchs. There are many forefathers of the population of the universe, and all of them are born of
the Supreme Lord, Kṛṣṇa. The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, is the original forefather of all
forefathers.

These are some of the opulences of the Supreme Lord. When one is firmly convinced of them, he
accepts Kṛṣṇa with great faith and without any doubt, and he engages in devotional service. All this
particular knowledge is required in order to increase one’s interest in the loving devotional service of
the Lord. One should not neglect to understand fully how great Kṛṣṇa is, for by knowing the
greatness of Kṛṣṇa one will be able to be fixed in sincere devotional service.

So SP is saying in this purport that the greatest of personalities in the universe are all coming from
Krishna and are therefore subordinate to Him. These persons are all fully aware of His glories and so
they have surrendered unto Him. Having knowledge of His glories is therefore very important for the
ordinary living entities to surrender, because unless one has spontaneous love for Krishna like the
inhabitants of Vrndavan who just love Krishna for being Krishna, and not for being God, the rest of us
living entities need reasons to believe that Krishna is God and for us to dedicate ourselves to serving
Him as such. This is why, in a few verses time, Arjuna will ask Krishna to explain His opulences so as
to convince those who need to surrender to Him that He is indeed the glorious Supreme Lord. Now
we have understood before that Arjuna is one of those pure devotees who spontaneously loves
Krishna and doesn’t need to be told of His infinite glories to be surrendered to Him and love Him,
because he knows it all already and believes it completely.
He’s asking to for all our sakes and countless generations have benefitted from Arjuna’s questions,
because it’s often said that without asking the right questions, one cannot get the right answers.
Indeed, there is an art to asking questions, and in spiritual life, this is even more so. In the fourth
chapter of BG, Krishna says that we must “enquire submissively” from the SM, but in the purport to
the verse, SP cautions that we do not make absurd enquiries. Of course, we may not always
understand what absurd enquiries are and we must be able to reveal our minds in confidence also,
whatever the doubts that may lie within, but there are fundamental basics that must be understood
in spiritual life. So in order to get us all off the spiritual starting blocks, great devotees like Arjuna
have asked questions throughout the ages in various scriptures to get answers about all kinds of
subject matters for our benefit and so we get closer to understanding Krishna. So in the same way
that Arjuna takes a role being confused and needing direction, other devotees take unusual roles to
please the Lord and teach us important truths about spiritual life.

Also in the battle of Kurukshetra was the great devotee of Krishna, Bhismadeva, who fought against
the side of the Lord, basically as His enemy. Like Arjuna, he’s playing a role in the Lord’s service but
he’s very much aware of Krishna’s identity. He says to his family as he leaves his body in Krishna’s
presence (SB 1.9.18):

eṣa vai bhagavān sākṣād

ādyo nārāyaṇaḥ pumān
mohayan māyayā lokaṁ
gūḍhaś carati vṛṣṇiṣu

This Śrī Kṛṣṇa is no other than the inconceivable, original Personality of Godhead. He is the first
Nārāyaṇa, the supreme enjoyer. But He is moving amongst the descendants of King Vṛṣṇi just like
one of us, and He is bewildering us with His self-created energy.

So Bhismadeva is not fighting Krishna as some ordinary opponent. He knows exactly who the Lord is.
This is a very interesting dichotomy for people who try to understand things from a materialistic
perspective, because your loyal servant can’t be your enemy and fight you with vigour. And by this,
we mean a real fight to the death, not a play or pretend fight at all. But SP clarifies that the Lord has
a fighting spirit like we have because all our tendencies come from Him, and if He’s going to fight, His
own devotees will take that role also because who else can Krishna associate with besides His
devotees, even in fighting? The Lord descends with His associates for all His pastimes and that
includes fighting. They’re not ordinary opponents at all. Consider Ravana and Hiranyakasipu: they
were impossible to defeat. The ordinary 4 th and 5th class demons of Kali yuga, as SP calls them can be
killed by some other means that material nature devises, but Ravana and Hiranyakasipu had usurped
so much power that they were practically controlling the material nature.

They were in charge of the heavenly planets, and thus all the demigods, including the planets that
usually enact destiny. We know the famous story of how Ravana made all the planets move into an
auspicious position for when his son Indrajith was born, except Shani dev or Saturn who moved into
an inauspicious position at the last minute for Ravana really punished him for, so in these situations
only Krishna could come to the rescue and save the world from these great demons. And so we see
from the image in our poster today of Krishna being held back from killing Bhismadeva: Bhismadeva
just could not be stopped; he was attacking Arjuna with everything he had because he wanted
Krishna to step in. He knew that Krishna had taken a vow not to bear arms in this war and act
neutrally as Arjuna’s charioteer. But Bhismadeva knew that if the occasion arose and Arjuna needed
protection, Krishna would intervene, and Bhismadeva wanted to see that because of that intense
and infallible love for His devotee, Krishna would break His own word. Although It is said that a
person’s word is their honour, but for Krishna, loving His devotee who loves Him is His honour and
He never fails in that. Such an incredible bond that we share with our incredible Lord.

So Bhismadeva wanted to test this quality of the Lord, in the way that Arjuna was asking questions:
it’s not for the obvious reason to the material viewpoint to break Krishna’s vow. It’s for a deeper
purpose. He was showing the world what it means to be a devotee of Krishna: one is loved and
protected, no matter what, and that kind of knowledge inspires our faith in Krishna, the first step in
devotional service. And the other reason that Bhismadeva challenged Arjuna so severely was that
Bhismadeva was a great warrior: the greatest, in fact, of the time. In that spirit, in that role that he
took on for service, he wanted to serve the Lord by giving Krishna a good fight. That’s what he took
the role for. He wasn’t an ordinary warrior at all, who would maybe just fire one arrow and die. He
knew what he was there for. We can consider that this was the highlight of his military career: he
was very old at the time of this battle- he was the older brother of Arjuna’s grandfather- and Arjuna
Himself was over 100 years old at the time of the battle. He had fought in countless battles and
proved his valour, skill and power. Now, he was standing before his worshipful Lord to show the best
of that skill to Him who gave him that skill.

So SP has mentioned many times that the really great leaders like this are true warriors who lead
from the front. Bhismadeva was the head of the royal family, but unlike modern times, he didn’t sit
in the palace while some innocent soldiers went to do his bidding in war. The royal family were at
the front of the battle charge, actually leading it, and so protecting the ordinary soldiers. These are
real warriors. And this is why they were allowed to hunt: they were honing their skills for their
varnasrama duty, and not for some idle pleasure like modern hunting. This carries a just karmic
burden for no creature should be killed for one’s own pleasure or taste. But a proper kshatriya king
needed the training so they fought tigers, bears, and so on, and kept themselves battle ready. It was
a challenge because the integrity of their kingdoms rested on their safety but there they were, in the
frontline fighting. They had to keep alive for the sakes of everyone.

So having great warriors on his side like Bhismadeva and Dronacarya made Duryodhana, Arjuna’s
rival, feel very confident. He didn’t consider that it was good to have them on his side because they
were pure devotees. His was purely a materialistic calculation; he was thinking only of their military
capabilities and not their devotion to the Lord. It is similar to how he was happier to have Krishna’s
army than having Krishna, unarmed. To him, what was the value of one unarmed “person” vs a fully
equipped army. So this illustrates fully the fallacy of trying to quantify anything spiritual by material
means. In material terms, Duryodhana had a much larger army- 11 divisions, vs the 7 on Arjuna’s
side, more experienced and greater fighters like Bhismadeva and Dronacarya, Bhima was protecting
Arjuna’s army as Duryodhana notes at the beginning of BG vs Bhismadeva (SP says that Bhima was a
fig in Bhismadeva’s presence), and the less experienced Dhrstadyumna to arrange Arjuna’s army vs
Dronacarya. But even with heavy losses, Arjuna’s side still won because of the presence of Krishna.
The spiritual maths is that having nothing and having Krishna means to have everything and having
everything without Krishna means to have nothing.

So in that great battle, although Krishna was unarmed and had promised not to fight, He took up a
chariot wheel to defend Arjuna when Bhismadeva was about to kill Arjuna. And what did
Bhismadeva do? He dropped his weapons to die at the hand of his Lord, happy and fulfilled. Now
this is something that a pure devotee can do because he has no attachment to his body. He realises
that the body is just a vehicle for serving Krishna and when that service is over, as decided by
Krishna, the body will be finished but his soul will go on to whatever other service Krishna decides.
So because his attachment is to the service of Krishna, He’s not lamenting that he’s going to die but
he’s welcoming it, literally as we can see, with open arms. That’s because, as an unflinching servitor,
he accepts whatever the will of the Lord is.

āśliṣya vā pāda-ratāṁ pinaṣṭu mām

adarśanān marma-hatāṁ karotu vā
yathā tathā vā vidadhātu lampaṭo
mat-prāṇa-nāthas tu sa eva nāparaḥ

I do not know anyone except Krishna as my Lord, and He shall always remain as such, even if He
handles me roughly by His embrace; or He may make me broken-hearted by not being present
before me. He is completely free to do anything and everything, but He is always my worshipful
Lord, unconditionally.

This is an extremely advanced level of KC, and not one that we can imitate, but we can try to practice
it in our daily lives: when we face a situation, no matter how small, we may have so many concerns
about how it can turn out. But we can humbly pray to Krishna, thinking that whatever happens, I will
do my best and accept it as His will, then take a deep breath and just let all the fears go, and if things
don’t go as planned, don’t ruminate, commiserate or fall apart. Think carefully about what lesson
could be learnt, pray for help, try again if possible, or move on to whatever else Krishna may want
one to do. He always has a plan and He always knows best.

So Bhismadeva accepted the plan when it was time for him to leave his body, and he recites this
beautiful verse when Krishna comes before him personally:

tathāpy ekānta-bhakteṣu
paśya bhūpānukampitam
yan me ’sūṁs tyajataḥ sākṣāt
kṛṣṇo darśanam āgataḥ

Yet, despite His being equally kind to everyone, He has graciously come before me while I am ending
my life, for I am His unflinching servitor.

1.9.22

So this is a very powerful statement for Bhismadeva make and it’s nice to break down for our
understanding. Bhismadeva was the most powerful warrior on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, like
we’ve mentioned before: there were 18 million soldiers there- the entire military force of the planet-
and even with so many of them, Bhisma was still the most experienced and successful. No one could
compare to him. His knowledge of fighting was incomparable, but in the purport to this verse, SP
explains what an unflinching devotee like Bhismadeva is: one who “is completely surrendered and
knows no one else as his protector and master.” So the greatest warrior of the time has the insight
and humility to have a protector and master. The tendency of being human, though, is to think of
ourselves as the master and arrange our own protection, as if that can save us from all material
calamities.

But this incredible warrior is here on his deathbed- as everyone will be at some point- and because
he has been intelligent enough to have a protector and master, never thinking that he was too great
to have one even at the height of his power and knowing that at any time, material nature can take
everything away, Krishna has come before Him personally. This is, again, the love that the Lord has
for His devotees: we talk about the word love easily on a theoretical level, but the meaning is
completely practical to Krishna. When His devotee loves Him like Bhismadeva and Arjuna do, He will
literally do anything for that devotee: from appearing personally to Bhismadeva at the time of death
despite how intensely Bhismadeva fought with Arjuna, even piercing Krishna with arrows, to
breaking His own promise and taking up a weapon for Bhismadeva to reciprocate with him on the
battlefield.

SP says in the purport to SB 1.9.34:

“Therefore Bhīṣmadeva’s piercing of the body of Lord Kṛṣṇa is a sort of bewildering problem for the
nondevotee atheist, but those who are devotees, or liberated souls, are not bewildered.

Bhīṣmadeva appreciated the all-merciful attitude of the Lord because He did not leave Arjuna alone,
although He was disturbed by the sharpened arrows of Bhīṣmadeva, nor was He reluctant to come
before Bhīṣma’s deathbed, even though He was ill-treated by him on the battlefield. Bhīṣma’s
repentance and the Lord’s merciful attitude are both unique in this picture.”

So these are wonderful points. We’ve discussed already how wonderfully Krishna protected Arjuna,
and now we have the point of how He has mercifully come before Bhismadeva as he is dying.
Bhismadeva wasn’t angry at all that he had been defeated and was about to die, all by the
arrangement of Krishna. He knew that the Lord wasn’t there to gloat that Bhismadeva’s side had
been defeated or get some kind of revenge that Bhismadeva had attacked Him so much and lost in
the end. These are material thoughts and feelings, because of conditioning by the modes of nature.
For ordinary persons, these may be the attitudes, but for Krishna and His pure devotees that are
above the modes, there are no friends and no enemies. On this transcendental plane, the attitudes
in service- whatever the rasa may be- are based in love alone, so Krishna is there at Bhismadeva’s
passing out of love for him, and Bhismadeva is expressing his love for Krishna. This is a very beautiful
pastime.

He speaks so lovingly of Krishna’s presence at his passing, as we must all be aware that the Lord will
be there for us as well (SB 1.9.23): “The Personality of Godhead, who appears in the mind of the
devotee by attentive devotion and meditation and by chanting of the holy name, releases the
devotee from the bondage of fruitive activities at the time of his quitting the material body.”

So we have mentioned before in previous classes that the chanting of the holy names was an
authorised method of deliverance from the beginning of time and practised by pure devotees, and
not a new fashion as people may criticise. Herein, 4500 years before LC appeared, Bhismadeva is
saying that devotional service, remembering Krishna and chanting His names will free us from
material reactions and grant liberation. Scripture is likely a mine and all over are gold fragments like
this enshrining the power and glory of the holy name. We need to chant every day, with attention,
even if we can do nothing else and the remembrance of Krishna will come to us, and with that is real
liberation from the material world because Krishna is literally there with us. We cannot emphasise
chanting Hare Krishna enough: attentively, all the time, with love.

So Bhismadeva was able to focus his mind on Krishna at the end of his life because of his
engagement in devotional service. One may argue, but the Lord was in front of him so that’s why he
was able to focus, but that’s not a given. When Krishna was in front of Duryodhana, Sisupala or any
other demon, were they able to see Him as the Supreme Lord and so focus on Him like Bhismadeva?
Definitely not. Their anarthas clouded their vision, and so they couldn’t appreciate His position as
the Lord nor theirs as His servants. So we are also afflicted by so many anarthas also and that’s why
we can’t see Krishna having His pastimes in His deity form as SP could, or perceive that Krishna is
directly in His names. And this is when we are relatively calmer and focussed in life. Can we imagine
being at the time of death, which could be so sudden, chaotic, painful, and so on, and try to focus on
Krishna, if we haven’t made it a regular and sustained practise throughout our lives? We can’t take
chances with such a thing as vital as this. So we have to try sincerely every day to meditate on our
practices with attention- chanting, cooking, reading- whatever we do for Krishna must be done with
that focus because it’s essential practice for that pivotal moment.

So how was Bhismadeva focussing (SB 1.9.24)? He says, “May my Lord, who is four-handed and
whose beautifully decorated lotus face, with eyes as red as the rising sun, is smiling, kindly await me
at that moment when I quit this material body.”

So even though Bhismadeva was already guaranteed to go back to Godhead no matter what, but still
he sets the example for all of us by focussing his mind on Krishna at the time of death. SP makes
another wonderful point in the purport to this verse that it is this that is real focus of the devotee-
being in full consciousness of Krishna is our ultimate goal. But liberation is usually considered the
goal of spiritual life and liberation is technically considered attaining the spiritual world after death,
but that’s not a devotee’s goal. A devotee only wants to think of Krishna. Liberation is a mere by-
product of this. Of course we also know that devotees are already liberated while in the material
world by being focussed on Krishna, because He is there wherever they are thinking of Him, and
wherever He is, is the spiritual world.

So we’ll read a few of his absolutely exquisite descriptions to conclude today’s class:

Text 32:

Bhīṣmadeva said: Let me now invest my thinking, feeling and willing, which were so long engaged in
different subjects and occupational duties, in the all-powerful Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa. He is always self-
satisfied, but sometimes, being the leader of the devotees, He enjoys transcendental pleasure by
descending to the material world, although from Him only the material world is created.

Text 33:

Śrī Kṛṣṇa is the intimate friend of Arjuna. He has appeared on this earth in His transcendental body,
which resembles the bluish color of the tamāla tree. His body attracts everyone in the three
planetary systems [upper, middle and lower]. May His glittering yellow dress and His lotus face,
covered with paintings of sandalwood pulp, be the object of my attraction, and may I not desire
fruitive results.

Text 34:

On the battlefield [where Śrī Kṛṣṇa attended Arjuna out of friendship], the flowing hair of Lord Kṛṣṇa
turned ashen due to the dust raised by the hoofs of the horses. And because of His labor, beads of
sweat wetted His face. All these decorations, intensified by the wounds dealt by my sharp arrows,
were enjoyed by Him. Let my mind thus go unto Śrī Kṛṣṇa.

Text 35:

In obedience to the command of His friend, Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa entered the arena of the Battlefield of
Kurukṣetra between the soldiers of Arjuna and Duryodhana, and while there He shortened the life
spans of the opposite party by His merciful glance. This was done simply by His looking at the enemy.
Let my mind be fixed upon that Kṛṣṇa.

Text 36:

When Arjuna was seemingly polluted by ignorance upon observing the soldiers and commanders
before him on the battlefield, the Lord eradicated his ignorance by delivering transcendental
knowledge. May His lotus feet always remain the object of my attraction.
Text 37:

Fulfilling my vow and sacrificing His own promise, He got down from the chariot, took up its wheel,
and ran towards me hurriedly, just as a lion goes to kill an elephant. He even dropped His outer
garment on the way.

Text 38:

May He, Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the Personality of Godhead, who awards salvation, be my ultimate
destination. On the battlefield He charged me, as if angry because of the wounds dealt by my sharp
arrows. His shield was scattered, and His body was smeared with blood due to the wounds.

Text 39:

At the moment of death, let my ultimate attraction be to Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the Personality of Godhead. I
concentrate my mind upon the chariot driver of Arjuna who stood with a whip in His right hand and
a bridle rope in His left, who was very careful to give protection to Arjuna’s chariot by all means.
Those who saw Him on the Battlefield of Kurukṣetra attained their original forms after death.

Thank you so much for your kind attention. Srila Prabhupada ki! Jaya!