Appreciating Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati's Historic Contributions in Historical Context

2016-12-17
Srimad Bhagavatam 10.88.03-04 - Appreciating Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati's Historic Contributions in Historical Context (download mp3)
by Chaitanya Charan Prabhu at ISKCON Chowpatty
www.iskcondesiretree.com




SB 10.88.3
sri-suka uvaca
sivah sakti-yutah sasvat
 tri-lingo guna-samvrtah
vaikarikas taijasas ca
 tamasas cety aham tridha

Translation: 
Sri Sukadeva said: Lord Siva is always united with his personal energy, the material nature. Manifesting himself in three features in response to the entreaties of nature’s three modes, he thus embodies the threefold principle of material ego in goodness, passion and ignorance.


SB 10.88.4
tato vikara abhavan
 sodasamisu kaƱcana
upadhavan vibhutinam
 sarvasam asnute gatim

Translation: 
The sixteen elements have evolved as transformations of that false ego. When a devotee of Lord Siva worships his manifestation in any one of these elements, the devotee obtains all sorts of corresponding enjoyable opulences.

Purport: 
False ego transforms into the mind, ten senses (the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, hands, feet, voice, genitals and anus), and five physical elements (earth, water, fire, air and ether). Lord Siva appears in a special linga form in each of these sixteen substances, which are worshiped individually as deities in various sacred locations of the universe. A devotee of Siva may worship one of his particular lingas to obtain the mystic opulences pertaining to it. Thus Lord Siva’s akasa-linga bestows the opulences of ether, his jyotir-linga bestows the opulences of fire, and so on.