19810915 Serving The Lord according To His Desire

The following is a class given by H.H. Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja, on September 15th, 1981 at Murāri Sevaka Farm in Mulberry , Tennessee (USA).

Jayapatākā Swami: Bali Mahārāja, he had a test he couldn't pass. From materialistic... He said, “Give me Three steps of land, but... so he couldn't give it, of course; but he surrendered everything to Him. So he was removed, everything he had, he lost; but then he was given other things in exchange which were greater. He couldn’t get exactly what he wanted, but he didn't care. He was crying, he was overwhelmed by the Lord's mercy. Even his guru was, who was, you know, misdirecting him, (whom) he rejected, also could see that he got all the mercy, and I made a fool of myself.

So, whatever the Lord's plan is, that's what's going to be. That's definitely what's going to happen. If we keep following the Lord's direction, we are going to reap the benefit. For the Pāṇḍavas, it was an on-going thing. So it may not just be a one-minute scourge; may extend over a period of few minutes like with Bali Mahārāja, or a couple of years like Prahlāda Mahārāja, or even over a decade like with the Pāṇḍavas, or over a whole life.

Prabhupāda said, “The test of how my followers love me is how well they cooperate with each other in my absence.” We can always find reasons why we shouldn't cooperate. We can find the defects in each individual. This one does not look in the right way, this one late for maṅgala-ārati three days a week. Just, you know, we find some, everyone will find something. This one has this defect, whatever. Then we come to the ultimate conclusion, so therefore I won’t cooperate. Prabhupāda didn't say that. The test of how you love is how you're going to cooperate. So people can always find some kind of fault, but the real thing is how to do what Prabhupāda wanted.

Once Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote a letter to some devotees that he was very pleased that they were working together with each other, without any argument. He said he knew that māyā gives so many ideas just to cause argumentation, difficulties. But the fact that those two devotees are working together (he said) was a sign that they were more attached to Lord Caitanya’s ideas, to the lotus foot-dust on Lord Caitanya's lotus feet, rather than the ideas that māyā was presenting. Especially we’re in this material world, because of enviousness. So natural tendency is always that why this person got that, why I didn't get it? Why this person got this, why, I didn’t get it? Just like in India in Bengal, there is a paper called The Sangram. It's the Communist mouth-piece. So they published in there, that the number one enemies of our class struggle are represented by this Hare Kṛṣṇa movement. This Hare Kṛṣṇa movement, don't be fooled by them. They're not sectarian, they're not limited to simply Hindus, or Muslim or Christian; they are for all the humanity. They are preaching the most insidious philosophy (devotees laugh), which cuts at the very root of our doctrines (a devotee laughs). They are teaching shamelessly, “īśāvāsyam idam sarvaṁ” these blasphemous words that everything is the property of God, “yat kiñca jagatyāṁ jagat” and that whatever a person has as his quota, he should be satisfied. If this poison is allowed to spread in the society, then we will not be able to cause the masses to uprise in proletarian revolution and they will become complacent and our class struggle will be stopped; therefore at any cost, you must stop these Hare Kṛṣṇa movement people from their insidious programs. Right in the public paper! So the whole thing, the whole Communist, so-called revolution, is based upon envy.

They get them all riled up: some people have, you don't have, is that right? No, They never gonna get it. They just take it away from those people, and the party people take It. It's not that the proletarians get any more than what they started out with. They take from the rich people, and then the party people are the new rich. But they get everybody riled up, simply on envy. “Nobody can be rich, everybody poor.” But then they're still the rich. There’s the black marketeer service and communist party men are rich. Some people are always rich by karma, but it's just more difficult. So like that, so many ideas māyā will give us and always the opposing elements, they will want to divide; create disturbance. But if we see the good qualities, like in our movement they are so many wonderful Vaiṣṇavas who are preaching Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, who are severing, developing projects for this movement. I was visiting one temple and someone asked that what GBC was in the temple, and I said there wasn't a GBC. He said, “Well what did you do?” I said I visited so many other wonderful devotees, I talked with them, visited them. It's not that… I thank Kṛṣṇa that our movement is not that just a few people are spiritually advanced. Some are maybe more advanced than others, but our movement has a tremendous depth of great devotees who have dedicated their lives to preaching Caitanya Mahāprabhu's movement and developing it.

Śrīla Prabhupāda was talking about giving some type of a title to devotees who excelled in different services. Not to create any false prestige, but to encourage them, so that such devotees would then become authorities in that field to give example to take some responsibility to train others. Like, say someone is a very expert cook. Then something like bhakti-poṣaka, or something (devotees laugh), means cook. Bhakti-prasāda-vikāsa (devotees laugh), or someone that's very expert at taking care of cows, Bhakti-gorakṣa or some one that's very good with Sanskrit; Bhaktisiddhānta gave someone Bhakti-ratna… ratna-vidyā… Vidyā-ratan, jewel of knowledge.

Prabhupāda was discussing it, he said that, “What type of title could be given,” but then it never finalized. The idea being is that, it's not only the management is one of the services, but all the different services Kṛṣṇa accepts equally. Managing, pūjā, cooking, whoever takes responsibly to do his service first class for Kṛṣṇa, whether its cooking or planting or preaching, he is taking it up in that dedicated mood, then Kṛṣṇa appreciates that. Different people have different qualities. Some maybe an actor, some maybe a drummer. Everyone is needed.

In Kṛṣṇa’s eyes every devotee is judged according to his surrender and sincerity. How much he is taking commitment to do his service. He takes more responsibility, he is given more mercy, because he needs it to cross over all the trials that could come with his responsibility. You don't want mercy… You don't want trials; you won’t get mercy. Trials means you want more mercy to cross off the trail, right? So you're going to drive in the plains so you don't need a strong engine, but if you're going to cross over the mountain, you need a big engine. You want to advance fast in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, then you don't walk away from taking responsibility. But take it and then, according to one's capacity, you should take and then pray to Kṛṣṇa, pray to the spiritual master to cross over the difficulty by developing maturity in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. That the leaders should see, how much a person can take. If he can do more than he is doing… If he is doing up to his capacity, all right. If he can do more, then he should be encouraged to do more. Each person may have a different capacity, that's also all right. Hanumān was throwing big boulders and the insect was throwing specks of dust, but Rāmacandra was accepting both.  Each person should be working up to his capacity. So when a difficulty or responsibility, with that comes a trial or a pressure and that's what helps us to… we need more help from Kṛṣṇa then. As we get more help, that means that we have increased our devotional service.