Śrīmad Bhāgavatam Canto Four
SB 4.15.23-26
HH Hanumatpresaka Swami
January 9, 2020- Text 23:
- O gentle reciters, offer such prayers in due course of time, when the qualities of which you have spoken actually manifest themselves in me. The gentle who offer prayers to the Supreme Personality of Godhead do not attribute such qualities to a human being, who does not actually have them.
- Text 24:
- How could an intelligent man competent enough to possess such exalted qualities allow his followers to praise him if he did not actually have them? Praising a man by saying that if he were educated he might have become a great scholar or great personality is nothing but a process of cheating. A foolish person who agrees to accept such praise does not know that such words simply insult him.
- Text 25:
- As a person with a sense of honor and magnanimity does not like to hear about his abominable actions, a person who is very famous and powerful does not like to hear himself praised.
- Text 26:
- King Pṛthu continued: My dear devotees, headed by the sūta, just now I am not very famous for my personal activities because I have not done anything praiseworthy you could glorify. Therefore how could I engage you in praising my activities exactly like children?
About the speaker
HH Hanumatpresaka Swami
Founder and General Secretary of NIOS, the North American Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies
His Holiness Hanumatpresaka Swami is the founder and General Secretary of NIOS, the North American Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies, and Visiting Professor with IECOO, the Institute for Oriental and Occidental Classical Studies, Ricardo Palma University, Lima, Peru. He is also a member of the faculty at Bhaktivedanta College, where he teaches on the subject of the text Bhaktirasamrita-sindhu. The Hindu Studies scholar Radhika Ramana Dasa is one of his illustrious disciples.
Hanumatpresaka Swami has developed a program of global lecturing. This has included work as Associate Director of the Bhaktivedanta Institute, which organized two “World Congresses for the Synthesis of Science and Religion,” Bombay, 1985, and Kolkatta, 1997. These included participation of Nobel Laureates such as George Wald, Charles Townes, Sir John Eccles, Arch-Bishop Paulos Mar Gregorios (President of World Council of Churches), the Dalai Lama and many others. In March 1999 Hanumatpresaka Swami was the chief guest for the University of Calcutta‘s “National Seminar on Science and Technology in Ancient India.” In November 2004 and July 2005 he was principal speaker at the “National Conference on Psychotherapy,” Cesar Vallejo University, Tujillo, Peru. With San Marcos University, the oldest university in the Western Hemisphere, NIOS was a co-organizer for the “Bharatiya Sanskriti: A Festival of Classical Indian Culture.” The Festival was produced in Lima from 2005-2007. Sponsors and participants included many prominent universities, Ambassador of India to Peru and renowned scholars from four continents.
