The Glories of Hiranyakasipu

Narada Muni continued: By devotional service one cannot achieve such intense absorption in thought of the Supreme Personality of Godhead as one can through enmity toward Him. That is my opinion.

- Srimad Bhagavatam 7.1.27

I meditate on the mind of Hiranyakasipu at the moment that Lord Narasimhadeva appears before him. May that level of absorption in the Supreme Person become mine.

Here's the talk that I gave at the temple last night. 36 minutes of the talk are here. The first few minutes are missing. There I explain that we named our son Prahlad Narasingha (in Latin America, where he was born, people have two first names) as he was conceived while we worked on publishing "The Transcendental Teachings of Prahlada Maharaja" in Spanish in South America. Like the Prahlad of the Bhagavatam he also has a demon as a father, so I have a lot of sympathy for Hiranyakasipu.

I also introduced the pastime explaining that the demons in the pastime are actually devotees playing this role in order to reciprocate with the Lord in this way, and that the narration of this pastime arises from a doubt in Pariksit Maharaja's mind that the Lord is partial to the demigods over the demons.

One thing I missed out was that Lord Visnu didn't come to help the demigods when Hiranyakasipu threw them out of heaven. This lead Hiranyakasipu to think of Him as a coward who was afraid to face him. So when Lord Visnu fought and killed his brother Hiranyaksa, Hiranyakasipu was sure that this was a cowardly act that had been done out of vengeance, sort of like the killing of the five sleeping sons of the Pandavas by Asvatthama.

Everybody focuses a lot on Prahlad Maharaja and Narasimhadeva around this time, so I thought I'd give a bit of love to Hiranyakasipu.

Check it out:

The Glories of Hiranyakasipu, mp3, 16MB