It is stated that Srimad-Bhagavatam is not only a superior literature but is the ripened fruit of all Vedic literatures.

Srimad-Bhagavatam — Sum and Substance of Vedic Literature

Read the Srimad-Bhagavatam and Bhagavad-gita As It Is (original editions by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada) online at http://www.prabhupadabooks.com.

Presenting the Absolute Truth

The conception of God and the conception of Absolute Truth are not on the same level. The Srimad-Bhagavatam hits on the target of the Absolute Truth. The conception of God indicates the controller, whereas the conception of the Absolute Truth indicates the summum bonum or the ultimate source of all energies. There is no difference of opinion about the personal feature of God as the controller because a controller cannot be impersonal. Of course modern government, especially democratic government, is impersonal to some extent, but ultimately the chief executive head is a person, and the impersonal feature of government is subordinate to the personal feature. So without a doubt whenever we refer to control over others we must admit the existence of a personal feature. Because there are different controllers for different managerial positions, there may be many small gods. According to the Bhagavad-gita any controller who has some specific extraordinary power is called a vibhutimat sattva, or controller empowered by the Lord. There are many vibhutimat sattvas, controllers or gods with various specific powers, but the Absolute Truth is one without a second. This Srimad-Bhagavatam designates the Absolute Truth or the summum bonum as the param satyam.

The author of Srimad-Bhagavatam, Srila Vyasadeva, first offers his respectful obeisances unto the param satyam (Absolute Truth), and because the param satyam is the ultimate source of all energies, the param satyam is the Supreme Person. The gods or the controllers are undoubtedly persons, but the param satyam from whom the gods derive powers of control is the Supreme Person. The Sanskrit word ishvara (controller) conveys the import of God, but the Supreme Person is called the parameshvara, or the supreme ishvara. The Supreme Person, or parameshvara, is the supreme conscious personality, and because He does not derive any power from any other source, He is supremely independent. In the Vedic literatures Brahma is described as the supreme god or the head of all other gods like Indra, Chandra and Varuna, but the Srimad-Bhagavatam confirms that even Brahma is not independent as far as his power and knowledge are concerned. He received knowledge in the form of the Vedas from the Supreme Person who resides within the heart of every living being. That Supreme Personality knows everything directly and indirectly. Individual infinitesimal persons, who are parts and parcels of the Supreme Personality, may know directly and indirectly everything about their bodies or external features, but the Supreme Personality knows everything about both His external and internal features.

The words janmady asya [Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.1.1] suggest that the source of all production, maintenance or destruction is the same supreme conscious person. Even in our present experience we can know that nothing is generated from inert matter, but inert matter can be generated from the living entity. For instance, by contact with the living entity, the material body develops into a working machine. Men with a poor fund of knowledge mistake the bodily machinery to be the living being, but the fact is that the living being is the basis of the bodily machine. The bodily machine is useless as soon as the living spark is away from it. Similarly, the original source of all material energy is the Supreme Person. This fact is expressed in all the Vedic literatures, and all the exponents of spiritual science have accepted this truth. The living force is called Brahman, and one of the greatest acharyas (teachers), namely Sripada Shankaracharya, has preached that Brahman is substance whereas the cosmic world is category. The original source of all energies is the living force, and He is logically accepted as the Supreme Person. He is therefore conscious of everything past, present and future, and also of each and every corner of His manifestations, both material and spiritual. An imperfect living being does not even know what is happening within his own personal body. He eats his food but does not know how this food is transformed into energy or how it sustains his body. When a living being is perfect, he is aware of everything that happens, and since the Supreme Person is all-perfect, it is quite natural that He knows everything in all detail.

Consequently the perfect personality is addressed in the Srimad-Bhagavatam as Vasudeva, or one who lives everywhere in full consciousness and in full possession of His complete energy. All of this is clearly explained in the Srimad-Bhagavatam, and the reader has ample opportunity to study this critically.

In the modern age Lord Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu preached the Srimad-Bhagavatam by practical demonstration. It is easier to penetrate into the topics of the Srimad-Bhagavatam through the medium of Sri Chaitanya's causeless mercy. Therefore a short sketch of His life and precepts is inserted herein to help the reader understand the real merit of Srimad-Bhagavatam. It is imperative that one learn the Srimad-Bhagavatam from the person Bhagavatam. The person Bhagavatam is one whose very life is Srimad-Bhagavatam in practice. Since Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is the Absolute Personality of Godhead, He is both Bhagavan and Bhagavatam in person and in sound. Therefore His process of approaching the Srimad-Bhagavatam is practical for all people of the world. It was His wish that the Srimad-Bhagavatam be preached in every nook and corner of the world by those who happened to take their birth in India.

The Srimad-Bhagavatam is the science of Krishna, the Absolute Personality of Godhead of whom we have preliminary information from the text of the Bhagavad-gita. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has said that anyone, regardless of what he is, who is well versed in the science of Krishna (Srimad-Bhagavatam and Bhagavad-gita) can become an authorized preacher or preceptor in the science of Krishna.

There is a need for the science of Krishna in human society for the good of all suffering humanity of the world, and we simply request the leaders of all nations to pick up this science of Krishna for their own good, for the good of society and for the good of all the world's people.

Topics of the Bhagavatam

Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.1.2

Completely rejecting all religious activities which are materially motivated, this Bhagavata Purana propounds the highest truth, which is understandable by those devotees who are fully pure in heart. The highest truth is reality distinguished from illusion for the welfare of all. Such truth uproots the threefold miseries. This beautiful Bhagavatam, compiled by the great sage Vyasadeva [in his maturity], is sufficient in itself for God realization. What is the need of any other scripture? As soon as one attentively and submissively hears the message of Bhagavatam, by this culture of knowledge the Supreme Lord is established within his heart.

Srimad-Bhagavatam 1.1.3, text & purport

O expert and thoughtful men, relish Srimad-Bhagavatam, the mature fruit of the desire tree of Vedic literatures. It emanated from the lips of Sri Shukadeva Gosvami. Therefore this fruit has become even more tasteful, although its nectarean juice was already relishable for all, including liberated souls.

Purport
Srimad-Bhagavatam is the sublime literature which surpasses all other Vedic scriptures due to its transcendental qualities. It is transcendental to all mundane activities and mundane knowledge. In this shloka it is stated that Srimad-Bhagavatam is not only a superior literature but is the ripened fruit of all Vedic literatures. In other words, it is the cream of all Vedic knowledge. Considering all this, patient and submissive hearing is definitely essential. With great respect and attention, one should receive the message and lessons imparted by the Srimad-Bhagavatam.

The Vedas are compared to the desire tree because they contain all things knowable by man. They deal with mundane necessities as well as spiritual realization. The Vedas contain regulated principles of knowledge covering social, political, religious, economic, military, medicinal, chemical, physical and metaphysical subject matter and all that may be necessary to keep the body and soul together. Above and beyond all this are specific directions for spiritual realization. Regulated knowledge involves a gradual raising of the living entity to the spiritual platform, and the highest spiritual realization is knowledge that the Personality of Godhead is the reservoir of all spiritual tastes, or rasas.

Every living entity, beginning from Brahma, the first-born living being within the material world, down to the insignificant ant, desires to relish some sort of taste derived from sense perceptions. These sensual pleasures are technically called rasas. Such rasas are of different varieties. In the revealed scriptures the following twelve varieties of rasas are enumerated: (1) raudra (anger), (2) adbhuta (wonder), (3) shringara (conjugal love), (4) hasya (comedy), (5) vira (chivalry), (6) daya (mercy), (7) dasya (servitorship), (8) sakhya (fraternity), (9) bhayanaka (horror), (10) bibhatsa (shock), (11) shanta (neutrality), (12) vatsalya (parenthood). The sum total of all these rasas is called affection or love. Primarily, such signs of love are manifested in adoration, service, friendship, paternal affection, and conjugal love. And when these five are absent, love is present indirectly in anger, wonder, comedy, chivalry, fear, shock and so on. For example, when a man is in love with a woman, the rasa is called conjugal love. But when such love affairs are disturbed there may be wonder, anger, shock, or even horror. Sometimes love affairs between two persons culminate in ghastly murder scenes. Such rasas are displayed between man and man and between animal and animal. There is no possibility of an exchange or rasa between a man and an animal or between a man and any other species of living beings within the material world. The rasas are exchanged between members of the same species. But as far as the spirit souls are concerned, they are one qualitatively with the Supreme Lord. Therefore, the rasas were originally exchanged between the spiritual living being and the spiritual whole, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The spiritual exchange or rasa is fully exhibited in spiritual existence between living beings and the Supreme Lord. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is therefore described in the shruti-mantras, Vedic hymns, as "the fountainhead of all rasas." When one associates with the Supreme Lord and exchanges one's constitutional rasa with the Lord, then the living being is actually happy.

These shruti-mantras indicate that every living being has its constitutional position, which is endowed with a particular type of rasa to be exchanged with the Personality of Godhead. In the liberated condition only, this primary rasa is experienced in full. In the material existence, the rasa is experienced in the perverted form, which is temporary. And thus the rasas of the material world are exhibited in the material form of raudra (anger) and so on.

Therefore, one who attains full knowledge of these different rasas, which are the basic principles of activities, can understand the false representations of the original rasas which are reflected in the material world. The learned scholar seeks to relish the real rasa in the spiritual form. In the beginning he desires to become one with the Supreme. Thus, less intelligent transcendentalists cannot go beyond this conception of becoming one with the spirit whole, without knowing of the different rasas.

In this shloka, it is definitely stated that spiritual rasa, which is relished even in the liberated stage, can be experienced in the literature of the Srimad-Bhagavatam due to its being the ripened fruit of all Vedic knowledge. By submissively hearing this transcendental literature, one can attain the full pleasure of his heart's desire. But one must be very careful to hear the message from the right source. Srimad-Bhagavatam is exactly received from the right source. It was brought by Narada Muni from the spiritual world and given to his disciple Sri Vyasadeva. The latter in turn delivered the message to his son Srila Shukadeva Gosvami, and Srila Shukadeva Gosvami delivered the message to Maharaja Parikshit just seven days before the King's death. Srila Shukadeva Gosvami was a liberated soul from his very birth. He was liberated even in the womb of his mother, and he did not undergo any sort of spiritual training after his birth. At birth no one is qualified, neither in the mundane nor in the spiritual sense. But Sri Shukadeva Gosvami, due to his being a perfectly liberated soul, did not have to undergo an evolutionary process for spiritual realization. Yet despite his being a completely liberated person situated in the transcendental position above the three material modes, he was attracted to this transcendental rasa of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is adored by liberated souls who sing Vedic hymns. The Supreme Lord's pastimes are more attractive to liberated souls than to mundane people. He is of necessity not impersonal because it is only possible to carry on transcendental rasa with a person.

In the Srimad-Bhagavatam the transcendental pastimes of the Lord are narrated, and the narration is systematically depicted by Srila Shukadeva Gosvami. Thus the subject matter is appealing to all classes of persons, including those who seek liberation and those who seek to become one with the supreme whole.

In Sanskrit the parrot is also known as shuka. When a ripened fruit is cut by the red beaks of such birds, its sweet flavor is enhanced. The Vedic fruit which is mature and ripe in knowledge is spoken through the lips of Srila Shukadeva Gosvami, who is compared to the parrot not for his ability to recite the Bhagavatam exactly as he heard it from his learned father, but for his ability to present the work in a manner that would appeal to all classes of men.

The subject matter is so presented through the lips of Srila Shukadeva Gosvami that any sincere listener that hears submissively can at once relish transcendental tastes which are distinct from the perverted tastes of the material world. The ripened fruit is not dropped all of a sudden from the highest planet of Krishnaloka. Rather, it has come down carefully through the chain of disciplic succession without change or disturbance. Foolish people who are not in the transcendental disciplic succession commit great blunders by trying to understand the highest transcendental rasa known as the rasa dance without following in the footsteps of Shukadeva Gosvami, who presents this fruit very carefully by stages of transcendental realization. One should be intelligent enough to know the position of Srimad-Bhagavatam by considering personalities like Shukadeva Gosvami, who deals with the subject so carefully. This process of disciplic succession of the Bhagavata school suggests that in the future also Srimad-Bhagavatam has to be understood from a person who is factually a representative of Srila Shukadeva Gosvami. A professional man who makes a business out of reciting the Bhagavatam illegally is certainly not a representative of Shukadeva Gosvami. Such a man's business is only to earn his livelihood. Therefore one should refrain from hearing the lectures of such professional men. Such men usually go to the most confidential part of the literature without undergoing the gradual process of understanding this grave subject. They usually plunge into the subject matter of the rasa dance, which is misunderstood by the foolish class of men. Some of them take this to be immoral, while others try to cover it up by their own stupid interpretations. They have no desire to follow in the footsteps of Srila Shukadeva Gosvami.

One should conclude, therefore, that the serious student of the rasa should receive the message of Bhagavatam in the chain of disciplic succession from Srila Shukadeva Gosvami, who describes the Bhagavatam from its very beginning and not whimsically to satisfy the mundaner who has very little knowledge in transcendental science. Srimad-Bhagavatam is so carefully presented that a sincere and serious person can at once enjoy the ripened fruit of Vedic knowledge simply by drinking the nectarean juice through the mouth of Shukadeva Gosvami or his bona fide representative.