Bṛhad Bhāgavatāmṛta, Canto 2, chapter four, part I

My review of chapter 4 of canto 2 is so lengthy that I decided to post it in two parts, to keep it surveyable –

2.4.4 See my blog of October 24, 2009

2.4.5 In the purport, which is supposed to be Sanātan Goswāmī's, Gopīprāṇadhan speaks of 're-establishing one's connection with the Lord's lotus feet'. That seems to support fall-vāda, but no such a thing is mentioned by Sanātan Goswāmī - he writes 'bhaktir eva yogaḥ sri vaikuntha loka prāptyupayaḥ bhagavac caraṇāravinda samyoga rūpo vā - 'Bhakti-yoga is the means to attain the Vaikuṇṭha world or the lotus feet of the Lord'. Nothing about re-establishing here.

2.4.20 Gopakumār flew into Vaikuṇṭha with his plane and then he was told to wait to get permission to enter. In the purport Gopīprāṇadhan writes: "This is the standard etiquette for introducing someone to the supreme opulence of Vaikuṇṭha: specific permission should be obtained for him either from Lord Vaikuṇṭha-nātha directly or from a proper deputized authority." But why he needed permission again if he had already been allowed to board the plane to Vaikuṇṭha on earth? Here Gopīprāṇadhan jumps to conclusions again. Sanātan Goswāmī simply says that Gopakumār is asked to wait a while (tvaṁ kṣaṇam ekaṁ tāvat tiṣṭha) so a manager (adhikārī) can tell Vaikuṇṭhanāth of his arrival (prabhuṁ vaikuṇṭha-nāthaṁ svayam eva sākṣād vijñāpya kenacit tad adhikāriṇā vā kṛtvā vijñāpanaṁ) because such is the etiquette in this most majestic realm (paramaiśvaryāviskāra rītyanusārāt). Nothing said about permission here.

2.4.24 Gopīprāṇadhan writes in the purport that a resident of Vaikuṇṭha "Covering his ears with his hands and sticking out his tongue, he waved another hand at Gopa-kumāra to stop him. Sticking out one's tongue is an insult in the west. Actually Sanātan Goswāmī wrote 'jihvāgra-saṁdaśana', he bit on the tip of his tongue, which in India is a sign of shock and outrage, but not an attempt to insult.

A refutation of the misconceptions about BB 2.4.25-41 has already been presented in my blog of June 24, 2009.

2.4.35 The residents of Vaikuṇṭha can contract or withdraw their own families within themselves. How does that work? I suppose it is like Kṛṣṇa expanding Himself into the boys and the calves during the Brahma Vimohan Līlā and then withdrawing them into Himself again.

2.4.36  "The Vaikuṇṭha-devotees not only acted in many different ways but also assumed many differing forms, including even those of animals, birds, and trees. Some devotees would show one form for some time and then change into another." The Vedanta Sūtra says liberated souls can have so many spiritual bodies at once (see my blog of August 5, 2006

2.4.45  In the purport Sanātan Goswāmī quotes Śrīmad Bhāgavat 3.15.18-19 - bhṛṅgādhipe hari kathām iva gāyamāne - it is as if the bees sing the glories of Hari. They temporarily stop their noise. Noise here also means glorification of Kṛṣṇa - kolāhalair vividha vandi-kalāvatam - the cowherds of Nandīśvara make a lot of noise too (Vilāpa Kusumāñjali 60). This is spiritual noise, it is not comparible to the blaring of Bollywood music from Indian megaphones, polluting the skies of Vraja nowadays. Its all a question of perception - for us kīrtan is the most ecstatic sound vibration but for non-devotees it is just a lot of noise, since they fail to catch the transcendental nature of the sound vibration. So this noise is a pleasant noise, not a disturbance. Viśvanāth Cakravartīpāda comments on the Bhāgavat verses that the bees humming sound like 'hari hari' is like Hari-kathā. He takes it literally. In Vaikuṇṭha everything centers around Nārāyan, so the singing of the birds and the bees must be about Him too. Śrīdhara Swāmī comments on this verse: anena tatratya-pakṣīnam api hari-kathā-śravaṇādi-paramānando darśitaḥ  'Here we see even the birds present showing topmost ecstasy in hearing and chanting Harikathā. Śrīdhara Swāmī speaks of a temporary lull in the noise, but Viśvanātha glosses it as śīghra, they swiftly stop the noise - 'the different birds like cuckoos, cranes and flamingos are totally non-envious, so they say: "Ham Ho! The bees are singing about Hari now, so let us be quiet now!" Birds aren't able to form words but Kṛṣṇa-conscious birds naturally sing about Hari, so it is understood to be such. Viśvanātha compares it to the ghūṇākṣara nyāya - termites may accidentally bite into wood in such a pattern that it is shaped as a letter in the alphabet. Similarly, even the flapping of the birds' wings may sound like Hari Hari and is understood as such. If even the flapping of their wings is adorable then what to speak of if they directly sing of Kṛṣṇa? "

2.4.46  The Vaikuṇṭha-vāsīs enjoy in connection with Kṛṣṇa, as in the samañjasā- and sādhāraṇī-rati of the Lord's consorts.

2.4.48 Gopīprāṇadhan says in his purport - "Thus the airplanes, trees, houses, and so on are all perfect living beings, qualitatively one with the Supreme Lord and with all other living persons, and they appear in whatever forms the Lord requires for His pleasure."
Sanātan Goswāmī's text is different- 'Although all objects there - forms, places, airplanes and so - are one compact Brahman (brahma-ghanatvenaikyatvaṁ bhagaval-līlānusāreṇa ca bahu-vidhatvam) they manifest in various forms. According to this brahma-ghanatva [being compact Brahman] it is one, and according to the pastimes of the Lord it appears in a multiple variety." That leaves the question whether the objects in Vaikuṇṭha are jīva-souls or some transcendental substance called brahma-ghana.

2.4.83 'For so long, hope had me dancing....' seems to say that Gopakumār was once with Kṛṣṇa, and had not been in the material world not since beginningless time, but the words 'for so long' are not there in the śloka, instead the word sadā, always, is there. He had always been hoping. In the commentary, Sanātan Goswāmī seems to say, "Even though Gopa-kumāra had forgotten his Lord for many lifetimes, which also indicates a beginning to his conditioning." That is in Sanātan Goswāmī's ṭīkā too, but searching for Kṛṣṇa for many lifetimes means there was a beginning to the search but not necessarily to the conditioning. This does not prove fall at all. Imperfection is absolutely absent from a perfect world because if it were even minutely imperfect it would immediately cease to be a perfect world. For this simple reason it is impossible for anyone to fall from the spiritual sky, since falling, becoming envious etc. is deeply imperfect. Mercy is always causeless - to say 'causeless mercy' is double - causeless is an unnecessary adjective to mercy. It is something you do not deserve but you get anyway.
The phrase “Gopakumār was returning home” at the end of the purport of verse 84 is also not there in the original Sanskrit ṭīkā of Sanātan Goswāmī."
At the end of the purport of verse 83, Gopīprāṇadhan writes "the Lord had always been to regain the association of His devotee." Here the word 'regain' is also not there in the original text. It may not be deliberate fraud, though. The same for the words 'returning' in the comment on verse 84. Some translators are so conditioned to fall-vāda that they see it in every text, though in fact it is nowhere. It is just a jump to conclusions. In Bhagavad Gītā, too, nowhere it is said 'he comes back to Me', but instead it is always 'he attains Me' - mām evaiṣyasi, mām upetya, te'pi yānti paraṁ gatim, etc. etc.

In the purport of BB 2.4.86, Gopīprāṇadhan writes "The Lord does not interfere with the independence of the rebellious jīvas." It becomes almost tedious, but this too is not in the text. In that place of the comment Kṛṣṇa Himself speaks - tasmād mad viṣayaka bhavad upekṣaṇāt - "Because of your upekṣā towards Me...." upekṣā in the dictionary says: "overlooking, disregard, negligence, indifference, contempt, abandonment, endurance, patience, dissent, trick, deceit." Though dissent and abandonment are mentioned here, neither of them are the primary meaning of the word, nor does it belong in the contextual mood of the story. Kṛṣṇa says in the previous verse 'tat te mayy akṛpām' - "you (Sarūpa) showed Me no mercy" - not "you rebellious soul became envious of Me and wanted to imitate Me so you left Goloka".

2.4.94 In the purport it is said: "This is the nature of Vaikuṇṭha—it is free from the constraints (kuntha) of material bondage." Vaikuṇṭha is translated sometimes as 'no fear or anxiety' and sometimes as 'no limitations', but actually all the dictionaries say that kuṇṭha means dull, blunt, lazy and stupid - symptoms of tamo-guṇa. So Vaikuṇṭha is the opposite of tamo-guṇa - lively, smart and sharp.

2.4.104 In his comment on this verse Gopīprāṇadhan writes: "The Supreme Lord may sometimes play tricks by pretending to assume forms that are not actually His eternal forms (svarūpas). For example, Lord Visnu showed Himself disguised as Mohini, the most attractive woman, but in fact the Personality of Godhead is always male, never female."

However, Sri Rupa Goswami quotes from Padma Purana nityāḥ sarve pare dhāmni ye cānye ca divaukasaḥ , "Even the demigods in the spiritual sky are eternal" - then what to speak of the Supreme Personality of Godhead - all His/Her forms and activities are eternal, otherwise how can they be God? This reeks of māyāvāda. And why God is never female? The śāstras say śakti-śaktimator abhedhaḥ - "There is no difference between the energy and the energetic." Indeed, we mention the śakti first and then the śaktimān - Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa, Sītā-Rām, Lakṣmī-Nārāyan. Anyway, just because we only know of a few activities of Mohinī - distributing nectar, beheading Rāhu and deluding Shiva and a few activities of Nṛsiṁha - ripping up Hiraṇyakaśipu, blessing Prahlād and receiving prayers from the Devatas - does not mean They are not eternal deities. Every breath God takes is eternal. Indeed, that is coming in the purport of verse 158: "These appearances of the Lord, although apparently ad hoc, are in fact eternal, real, and all-pervading." The Mohini-paragraph of that purport is by Gopīprāṇadhan himself, not from Sanātan Goswāmī,  and clearly contradicts this. If Mohini is not eternal then what is she, if she is not God then what is she? Some Vaiṣṇava groups do two Nṛsiṁha-kīrtans a day, every day of their lives, and always find ecstasy in it - so because Nṛsiṁha had an ad-hoc functional līlā, does that mean He is not eternal?