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Captive

Srimad-Bhagavatam

SB Canto 1

SB 1.10.29, Purport:

Rukmiṇī had ten sons, like Pradyumna. There were other queens also taken away by Lord Kṛṣṇa in a similar way. Full description of this beautiful booty of Lord Kṛṣṇa will be given in the Tenth Canto. There were 16,100 beautiful girls who were daughters of many kings and were forcibly stolen by Bhaumāsura, who kept them captive for his carnal desire. These girls prayed piteously to Lord Kṛṣṇa for their deliverance, and the merciful Lord, called by their fervent prayer, released them all by fighting and killing Bhaumāsura. All these captive princesses were then accepted by the Lord as His wives, although in the estimation of society they were all fallen girls. The all-powerful Lord Kṛṣṇa accepted the humble prayers of these girls and married them with the adoration of queens. So altogether Lord Kṛṣṇa had 16,108 queens at Dvārakā, and in each of them He begot ten children. All these children grew up, and each had as many children as the father. The aggregate of the family numbered 10,000,000.

SB Canto 3

SB 3.26.7, Purport:

Actually the Supreme Lord is the leader and maintainer of all living entities. His pastimes are transcendental to any material activity. Such pastimes of the Lord cannot be dragged to the level of the conditional activities of the living entities. In conditional life the living entity actually remains as if a captive in the hands of material energy. Whatever the material energy dictates, the conditioned soul does. He has no responsibility; he is simply the witness of the action, but he is forced to act in that way due to his offense in his eternal relationship with Kṛṣṇa. Lord Kṛṣṇa therefore says in Bhagavad-gītā that māyā, His material energy, is so forceful that it is insurmountable. But if a living entity simply understands that his constitutional position is to serve Kṛṣṇa and he tries to act on this principle, then however conditioned he may be, the influence of māyā immediately vanishes. This is clearly stated in Bhagavad-gītā, Seventh Chapter: Kṛṣṇa takes charge of anyone who surrenders to Him in helplessness, and thus the influence of māyā, or conditional life, is removed.

SB 3.30.27, Translation:

Next his limbs are lopped off and torn asunder by elephants. He is hurled down from hilltops, and he is also held captive either in water or in a cave.

SB Canto 5

SB 5.14.32, Translation:

Just as a monkey jumps from one tree to another, the conditioned soul jumps from one body to another. As the monkey is ultimately captured by the hunter and is unable to get out of captivity, the conditioned soul, being captivated by momentary sex pleasure, becomes attached to different types of bodies and is encaged in family life. Family life affords the conditioned soul a festival of momentary sex pleasure, and thus he is completely unable to get out of the material clutches.

SB Canto 7

SB 7.13.30, Purport:

As soon as a living entity is victimized by material desires to lord it over material nature, he is subjected to the control of material nature, which is supervised by the Supreme Soul. The result is that one again and again makes plans and is baffled, but as foolish as he is he cannot see the cause of his bafflement. This cause is distinctly stated in Bhagavad-gītā: because one has not surrendered to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, he must work under the control of material nature and its stringent laws (daivī hy eṣā guṇa-mayī mama māyā duratyayā (BG 7.14)). The only means of becoming free from this entanglement is to surrender to the Supreme Lord. In the human form of life, the living entity must accept this instruction from the Supreme Person, Kṛṣṇa: sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja (BG 18.66). "Do not plan to achieve happiness and drive away distress. You will never be successful. Simply surrender unto Me." Unfortunately, however, the living entity does not accept the Supreme Lord's clearly stated instructions from Bhagavad-gītā, and thus he becomes a perpetual captive of the laws of material nature.

SB Cantos 10.14 to 12 (Translations Only)

SB 10.58.58, Translation:

Lord Kṛṣṇa also acquired thousands of other wives equal to these when He killed Bhaumāsura and freed the beautiful maidens the demon was holding captive.

SB 11.23.38-39, Translation:

Some would ridicule him by saying, "Just see this greatly powerful sage! He is as steadfast as the Himalaya Mountains. By practice of silence he strives for his goal with great determination, just like a heron." Other persons would pass foul air upon him, and sometimes others would bind this twice-born brāhmaṇa in chains and keep him captive like a pet animal.

SB 12.12.39, Translation:

Also narrated are how Lord Kṛṣṇa, in the battle with Bāṇāsura, defeated Lord Śiva by making him yawn, how the Lord cut off Bāṇāsura's arms, and how He killed the master of Prāgjyotiṣapura and then rescued the young princesses held captive in that city.

Other Books by Srila Prabhupada

Krsna, The Supreme Personality of Godhead

Krsna Book 58:

Besides Kuntīdevī, Kṛṣṇa had another paternal aunt; her name was Śrutakīrti, and she was married and lived in Kekaya Province. She had a daughter whose name was Bhadrā. Bhadrā wanted to marry Kṛṣṇa, and her brother handed her over to Him unconditionally. Kṛṣṇa accepted her as His bona fide wife. Thereafter, Kṛṣṇa married a daughter of the King of Madras Province. Her name was Lakṣmaṇā, and she had all good qualities. She was also forcibly married by Kṛṣṇa, who took her in the same way that Garuḍa snatched the jar of nectar from the hands of the demigods. Kṛṣṇa kidnapped this girl in the presence of many other princes in the assembly of her svayaṁvara. The svayaṁvara is a ceremony in which the bride can select her own husband from an assembly of many princes.

The description of Kṛṣṇa's marriage with the five girls mentioned in this chapter is not sufficient. He had many other thousands of wives besides them. Kṛṣṇa accepted the other thousands of wives after killing a demon named Bhaumāsura. All these thousands of girls were held captive in the palace of Bhaumāsura, and Kṛṣṇa released them and married them.

Krsna Book 59:

The story of Bhaumāsura—how he kidnapped and made captive sixteen thousand princesses by collecting them from the palaces of various kings and how he was killed by Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Lord of wonderful character—is all described by Śukadeva Gosvāmī to King Parīkṣit in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Generally, the demons are always against the demigods. This demon, Bhaumāsura, having become very powerful, took by force the umbrella from the throne of the demigod Varuṇa. He also took the earrings of Aditi, the mother of the demigods. He conquered the portion of heavenly Mount Meru known as Maṇi-parvata and occupied it. The King of the heavenly planets, Indra, therefore came to Dvārakā to complain about Bhaumāsura before Lord Kṛṣṇa.

Hearing this complaint by Indra, the King of heaven, Lord Kṛṣṇa, accompanied by His wife Satyabhāmā, immediately started for the abode of Bhaumāsura. The two of them rode on the back of Garuḍa, who flew them to Prāgjyotiṣa-pura, Bhaumāsura's capital city.

Krsna Book 59:

After Lord Kṛṣṇa had heard the prayers of Mother Earth, He immediately assured her of immunity from all fearful situations. He said to Bhagadatta, “Don’t be afraid.” Then He entered the palace of Bhaumāsura, which was equipped with all kinds of opulences. In the palace of Bhaumāsura, Lord Kṛṣṇa saw 16,100 young princesses, who had been kidnapped and held captive there. When the princesses saw the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, enter the palace, they immediately became captivated by the beauty of the Lord and prayed for His causeless mercy. Within their minds, they decided to accept Lord Kṛṣṇa as their husband without hesitation. Each one of them prayed to Providence that Kṛṣṇa might become her husband. Sincerely and seriously, they offered their hearts to the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa with an unalloyed devotional attitude. As the Supersoul in everyone's heart, Kṛṣṇa could understand their uncontaminated desire, and He agreed to accept them as His wives. Thus He arranged for suitable garments and ornaments for them, and each of them, seated on a palanquin, was dispatched to Dvārakā City. Kṛṣṇa also collected unlimited wealth from the palace, a treasure of chariots, horses, jewels and so on. He took from the palace fifty white elephants, each with four tusks, and all of them were dispatched to Dvārakā.

Krsna Book 69:

The Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, who is the original Nārāyaṇa and eternal friend of all living entities, thus worshiped the sage Nārada according to Vedic regulative principles. Welcoming him with sweet, nectarean words, He addressed Nārada as bhagavān, or one who is self-sufficient, possessing all knowledge, renunciation, strength, fame, beauty and other, similar opulences. He particularly asked Nārada, "What can I do in your service?"

Nārada replied, "My dear Lord, this kind of behavior by Your Lordship is not at all astonishing, for You are the Supreme Personality of Godhead and master of all species of living entities. You are the supreme friend of all living entities, but at the same time You are the supreme chastiser of the miscreants and the envious. I know that Your Lordship has descended to this earth for the proper maintenance of the whole universe. Your appearance, therefore, is not forced by any other agency. By Your sweet will only, You agree to appear and disappear. It is my great fortune that I have been able to see Your lotus feet today. Anyone who becomes attached to Your lotus feet is elevated to the supreme position of neutrality and is uncontaminated by the material modes of nature. My Lord, You are unlimited—there is no limit to Your opulences. Great demigods like Lord Brahmā and Lord Śiva are always busy placing You within their hearts and meditating upon You. The conditioned souls, who have now been put into the blind well of material existence, can get out of this eternal captivity only by accepting Your lotus feet. Thus, You are the only shelter of all conditioned souls. My dear Lord, You have very kindly asked what You can do for me. In answer to this I simply request that I may not forget Your lotus feet at any time. I do not care where I may be, but I pray that I constantly be allowed to remember Your lotus feet."

Renunciation Through Wisdom

Renunciation Through Wisdom 5.1:

Lord Caitanya declared that the constitutional position of every living entity is to be an eternal servant of Lord Kṛṣṇa. Therefore every jīva is inherently a liberated being. The jīva's present conditioned state is an illusion caused by his forgetting Lord Kṛṣṇa. Lord Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā that the jīva is His separated part. The conditioned soul is enchained by the mind, senses, and so on, which are agents of māyā, the illusory energy. The jīva is now in captivity as a result of his previous sinful activities, but why should he remain so eternally? His imprisonment can be easily ended simply by the Lord's mercy. And if the Lord's mercy is not available, then on his own the jīva can never free himself. Conceited persons who think they can obtain liberation without the Lord's mercy, simply by performing strict penances and austerities, are totally mistaken; they fail. Still, although receiving the Lord's mercy is the prime cause for attaining liberation, the Lord does not participate directly in the affairs of the conditioned soul. As the Lord states in the Bhagavad-gītā (5.14), referring both to the jīva and Himself,

na kartṛvaṁ na karmāṇi
lokasya sṛjati prabhuḥ
na karma-phala-saṁyogaṁ
svabhāvas tu pravartate

The embodied spirit, master of the city of his body, does not create activities, nor does he induce people to act, nor does he create the fruits of action. All this is enacted by the modes of material nature.

Conversations and Morning Walks

1975 Conversations and Morning Walks

Morning Walk -- October 18, 1975, Johannesburg:

Harikeśa: (aside:) The car is there.

Prabhupāda: No, we shall walk. (tape recording continues)

Prabhupāda: "It is impossible. It will not be allowed, and they are trying for it. How this body can be maintained? 'Yes, we are trying. Now the disease has been reduced. Now they are living more days.' These are their foolish. They will never say, 'No, it is impossible.' Still, they will support their rascal endeavors." Modern advancement of science, what actually they have done? We are talking on that point. Simply misleading. The Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura has sung one nice... (tape recorded section accidentally plays) "eating meat and drinking wine." (Prabhupāda and devotees laugh at interruption. Harikeśa apologizes) That... He says, jada vidy saba māyāra vaibhava. Jada vidyā means material education, the so-called material science. So jada vidyā. Vidyā means education, so this expansion of knowledge means expansion of the influence of māyā. Jada vidyā saba māyāra vaibhava. And the result is tomāra bhajane bādhā. People will forget God. With the advancement of so-called material science or material knowledge, the result will be that people will forget God. And then next, next is anitya saṁsāre moha janamiya. "This material world, which is temporary, where we cannot stay, we are already captivated, but this advancement of material knowledge will make me more captive, and I shall work just like an ass." That's all. Now, whether he is right or wrong, tell me. His charge is that advancement of material education is advancement of the influence of material energy, and if you say that "What is the wrong there?" the wrong is that we are already rascals, and this education will make me more rascal. Anitya saṁsāre moha janamiya. "I am already captivated in this temporary material world, and these things will make me more advanced to be captivated in this material world." Now this is the version of Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura. Now, if you don't like, tell what is the reason. Tell me. Material education... We are already captive under the laws of material nature, and the more we advance in material education, we'll be more and more rigidly captive. So this is the version of Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura. What is your answer? Can anyone refute Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, that he is wrong?

1977 Conversations and Morning Walks

Room Conversation -- February 17, 1977, Mayapura:

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: One recent case in Texas, I think I may have told Your Divine Grace, how the father killed his son while his son was sleeping, and the court said, "It is all right, because the father has so many feelings this boy was going bad, we should not interfere," even to the point of murdering the son. The court let him go. So this tendency is there now in the legal system. It's very lenient towards the parents, not towards the children.

Brahmānanda: Generally when the child is kidnapped, the parent is always present. And when they have the deprogramming torture session, the parent is also present.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: And in fact, the persons who do a lot of the torturing are relatives.

Ādi-keśava: Just like in the case of Vasu-gopāla. When he was held in his house, he managed to get to the phone and call me. So we went out to his house with some of the brahmacārīs from the temple and starting breaking all the windows in the house and smacking down the doors. And as he was running around the house, his brothers and friends were grabbing him and throwing him down against the walls and locked him in a room to try to get him away from us, and they were fighting. Finally, they say in Ted Patrick's book, they thought there were twenty-five of us. There were only four of us or five of us. So finally, in the end, they were so terrified that all of them began to fight. Even this Ted Patrick came at me with a straight razor. In those cases, generally, they use the family members for the fighting.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: This clouds the issue in the courtroom, because everyone naturally feels very sympathetic towards the fathers and mothers. So always... These deprogrammers are very intelligent. They personally try to avoid the physical part, so they get the parents to do it.

Ādi-keśava: And then, if the person strikes out at the parent, they say, "Just see how crazy he's become!" Just like with Vasu-gopāla, he took a stick and hit his mother across the head and ran out shouting the name of Nṛsiṁha-deva as they were holding him captive, so he could run away. And so they said, "Just see how crazy he's become that he hit his own mother." Of course, the fact is they didn't mention they locked him in the bathroom for thirty hours just before. They kept him in a little bathroom. They locked the door, put him in there for thirty hours. All they mentioned is that he come out and hit her on the head with some stick. So then they say, "Just see! He's acting against his parents." So then the judge says, "Oh, what can I do? Naturally the father loves the son."

Prabhupāda: So why don't you quote from our śāstra that "He is not father." Pitā na sa syāj jananī na sā syāt. Find out this verse.

Pradyumna:

gurur na sa syāt sva-jano na sa syāt
pitā na sa syāj jananī na sā syāt
daivaṁ na tat syān na patiś ca sa syān
na mocayed yaḥ samupeta-mṛtyum

"One who cannot deliver his dependents from the path of repeated birth and death should never become a spiritual master, a father, a husband, a mother or a worshipable demigod."

Prabhupāda: So how he's father? What is the purport?

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: Read the purport.

Pradyumna: "There are many spiritual masters, but Ṛṣabhadeva..." (break)

Prabhupāda: And who is father according to that definition? This is our formula.

Room Conversation with Adi-kesava Swami -- February 19, 1977, Mayapura:

Ādi-keśava: Right. Another thing is that this group, they are very organized.

Prabhupāda: Yes. They have got money.

Ādi-keśava: They have big money. I can show you in this book. We made one chart of their organization.

Hari-śauri: Page fifteen, seventeen.

Ādi-keśava: It shows that they have a big organization. See, they have all these committees. And there's a lot of money involved. There are a lot of people with big money. Starting at the top, they've made a national organization. I know all these men. I've spoken to all these people. They're big demons, but they have a lot of money, so they're fighting us in all the different courts. But so far they have not taken it beyond the lower courts. When we take it to the higher courts we always win. For instance, just before I left, we took two cases to the Federal Court. Immediately we won. In one day they gave us the case. My case is in a very low court. If it goes to a high-court we will win. So we are wanting to do this, but that means again that if we were to do it, only certain lawyers can enter into the Federal Court. Not just any lawyer can argue there, because you have to have some...

Prabhupāda: So you have to pay. What can be done?

Ādi-keśava: So if you're willing to do that, I will do it.

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Ādi-keśava: I'm hoping that if we can organize some legal office for the society, then we will be able to do this more effectively.

Prabhupāda: What is this?

Ādi-keśava: This is that book we made for the conference, the ACLU conference in New York.

Prabhupāda: Who he is?

Ādi-keśava: He is one of the guṇḍās.

Hari-śauri: In England, this one.

Ādi-keśava: No, he's in...

Hari-śauri: No, in Ipswich.

Ādi-keśava: Ipswich, Massachusetts.

Hari-śauri: Oh, sorry. I thought...

Ādi-keśava: He is in... This is one of the men who was used to hold a devotee during a deprogramming, a big... I know this man personally. You see, already we have sometimes come to blows with them. We had one incident where a devotee was being held captive, and I went with some devotees in the middle of the night, and we had some fighting. The police stopped us. They took me away and beat me and threw me in the bushes, and then they kept the boy there, the devotee. He got away later. But men like this we have fought with several times. When it comes to these questions, I wanted to know, when there is sometimes some violence...

Prabhupāda: What can be done? Violence. Beat him.

Ādi-keśava: This book gives documentation of so many cases where they have used violence against our devotees. These are also...

Hari-śauri: Hired men. Guṇḍās.

Ādi-keśava: They're hired men. This is the case of one of their men who was later held for murder of another man. He was used in a deprogramming, and then later on, some months later, he murdered some man and went to jail for it. So they're very serious. It's not just philosophical arguments. There's a list here in this book we've made of the devotees in our movement who've been taken. This list is very recent, by temple. You can see in practically every temple they have taken some devotees, some who are..., most of them are back in our movement, but some who are not. But now their tactic is this legal thing. Now they get this legal conservatorship, and then even we go and save the devotee, we take them back, the police can come and arrest us. So in these cases we are finding that the only thing to do is sometimes to go and physically drag them away and hide them until the term of this thing is up. Another thing is we are giving, as we said yesterday, some asylum in other countries, like with Canada. And one thing is that the Indian government told me that they would give me asylum. The Ambassador told me that if I were to be held, the Indian government would give me asylum.

Prabhupāda: That is very good.

Correspondence

1970 Correspondence

Letter to Jaya Gopala -- Tokyo 25 August, 1970:

Regarding your marriage, I have no objection, but if you accept a girl for marriage she should be younger than you. At least she should not exceed your age. I know you are a very sincere devotee and I wish everyone of my devotees may purify himself from all material contamination and thus be eligible for entering into the association of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Material life means indulging in sense gratification which diverts our attention from spiritual importance and thus we remain captive under the bewilderment of Maya. This is the most dangerous of our condition of life. Intelligent persons therefore try to avoid it under the protection of Krsna and the Spiritual Master.

Hope this will meet you in good health.

Your ever well-wisher,

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

Page Title:Captive
Compiler:Surabhi, GauraHari
Created:07 of Jun, 2012
Totals by Section:BG=0, SB=8, CC=0, OB=5, Lec=0, Con=3, Let=1
No. of Quotes:17