19820501 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.21.16

(Disclaimer: The following is a machine-generated transcript and may contain errors or inaccuracies. It will be reviewed and verified against the original audio soon.)

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on May 1, 1982 – in Atlanta, USA. The lecture begins with a reading from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.21.16.

Sadeena radhe it jenna it Sadeena. Do I try a palace? Nirvi jasana navama Kṛṣṇa pradai Kṛṣṇa Chaitani go rashida daiya prabhupda jaya hari Kṛṣṇa Hari Rāma o namo devasude oi namo magua devasude o namo bhagavad oṁ namoba devasude mugabe bhagama ni shaya jama japati but is ādi shattam that’s Malaysia to ya but they say what? I am Loki Lamahatoba jalo ganu ghatovah desires conquer my lusty desires following the condition, souls following the condition, souls Bahami offer Baleen Balin oblation cha cha and translation by divine version o my lord, you are the master and leader of all living entities under your direction. All conditioned souls, as if bound by rope are constantly engaged in satisfying their desires, following them or embodiment of religion. I also bear oblations for you who are eternal time. O my lord.

O my lord, you are the master, the leader of all living entities under your direction. Under your direction all conditioned souls as if bound by rope, as if bound by rope are constantly engaged, satisfying their desires, following them I also bear oblations for you. I also bear relations for you. Father. In the Qakar upon the it is stated that the supreme Lord is the leader of all living entity. He is their sustainer and the awarder of all their necessities and desires. No living entity is independent. All are dependent on the mercy of the supreme Lord. Therefore, the vedic instruction is that one should enjoy life under the direction of the supreme leader.

The personality of Godhead vedic literature like Isha Upanishad direct that since everything belongs to the supreme personality of Godhead, one should not encroach upon another’s property but should enjoy one’s individual allotment. The best program for every livinger is to take direction from the supreme Lord and enjoying material or spiritual life. A question may be raised. Since Kagalamuni was advanced in spiritual life, why then did he not ask the Lord for liberation? Why did he want to enjoy material life despite he was personally seeing and experiencing the supreme Lord? The answer that not everyone is comprehend to be liberated from material bondage. It is everyone’s duty therefore to enjoy according to the his present position but under the direction of the Lord or the Vedas. The Vedas are considered to be the direct words of the Lord.

The Lord gives us the opportunity to enjoy the material life as we want. At the same time, he gives directions for the modes and processes of abiding by the Vedas, so that gradually 1 may be elevated to liberation from material bondage. The condition souls who have come to the material world to fulfill their desires to lord it over material nature are bound by the laws of nature. The best course is to abide by debated rules that will help one to be gradually elevated to liberation. Doctor Mamouni addressed the Lord as suplah, which means the leader of religion. One who is pious should follow the rules of religion, for such rules are prescribed by the Lord himself. No one can manufacture or concoct a religion. Religion refers to the injunctions and laws of the Lord.

In Bhagavad Gītā, the lord says that religion means to surrender unto him. Therefore, one should follow the basic regulations and surrender unto the supreme Lord, because that is the ultimate goal of perfection in human life. One should live a life of piety, follow the religious rules and regulations, marry and live peacefully for elevation to the higher status of spiritual realization. Thus hand the purport by his migration. O my lord, you are the master leader of all living entities. Under your direction, all conditioned souls, as if bound by rope, are constantly engaged in satisfying their desires, following them. O embodiment of religion, I also bear oblations for you who are eternal tired. It so it mentions here in the Katya Panesha, the supreme Lord is the leader of all the energies that the Lord he is alone maintaining all of these.

He is the amongst all the conscious being is the supreme conscious being amongst all the eternals. He’s the supreme eternal and he alone is maintaining all of them, all of their food, all of their necessities. The modern man would like to dispense with God. This is the explain the nature of the materialists. They worship God generally for including their material condition. When they feel that their material condition can be maintained without worshipping God, then why go to the trunk of worshiping God? So they become atheistic and dispense with religion. So mainly religion is practiced by people so that they can enjoy their material situation very nicely today, because the material situation is such that one feels confident that by his own hard work he can get on without worshiping God. So therefore they stop worshiping.

There were some in the magazine recently said that in 1900 there were not even 1% atheist, and today there’s proclaimed 20% atheists in the world. This is the basic principle that in general, even a person believes in God, their only reason is to worship God for some material benefit. So when they see that, well, I can get that benefit without worshiping God for them, God is there. So it’s not that God’s only purpose is simply to reward the material living entity with his good and bad results, although that is one of his principal functions in the material world. But his real function, of course, is to accept, to service, and to engage them in his service. And thus there’s a loving reciprocation. Actually, these materialists who are very puffed up and proud of their advancement, they feel themselves independent.

They should know that no living entity is independent. All are dependent on the mercy of the Lord. Big country like England, very self confident. They were putting their maybe in the monk vaults. All of a sudden, a comparatively smaller country in the third world, like Argentina, practically declared the war on them. So where is the question of independence? Or where is the question of security? The material world is such that no one can feel completely secure. Even great demigods like Indra, who have got immense power, mystic power, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of times more powerful than human beings of the ordinary status. They also have so many fears that someone will encroach upon their property. Big country like America, people are becoming possibly more atheistic before. The fear of an invasion, however, is never length.

It’s always increasing, in spite of them having so many, I don’t know, hundreds or thousands of nuclear warheads, each one able to destroy a big city. Still, they have always to be on the alert, and they are afraid that it is not enough. They have to increase it. So where is the question of security in this material? If you have enough weapons to blow up the enemy three times over and you still don’t feel secure? And is this not enough indication that there’s never any security in this material? Where is the question of security? Where is the question of any kind of peace of mind? So people, they may feel themselves to be independent from the mercy of the Lord, but they should understand a very practical point of view. Nobody is independent. And everyone is very much in a vulnerable, frail position.

Doesn’t take much to create a crisis. Everyone is in a very precarious position. That’s why we’re in the doubt. That’s what he’s saying in the song. Kamala dalla jallah Jivaran Kalalama is very appropriate, you know. Kamala dalla jallah, drop of water and a lotus leaves, the lotus leaf and jallah means water. So it’s like jaladu. Jalla means water. So when you have a drop of water, lotus leaf is a wonderful, wonderful thing. Somehow it has some kind of coating on it whereby it is completely waterproof. If you put water on it doesn’t stay, it doesn’t actually absorb the water. The water beads up on it and rolls up. It’s considered to be the most opulent place to offer prashad to the Lord. Arm a fresh lotus leaf. It’s very nice to take prashad also because of its capacity.

It’s like taking it at nothing because it doesn’t absorb water. So it doesn’t at all interact with the, whatever the food you put on is. At the same time, it has a very natural beauty and natural vibration and feeling and everything about it. Very pure thing. But in this case, the example is used that when it’s on the water floating naturally, whichever way the water is moving, in terms of generally is in pond, but there’s not any current. But then little slight wind or something causes little wave. And naturally, that lotus leaf is in a very delicate position, just moving whichever way the water is moving.

So if there’s one drop of water on there, then actually any slight movement of waves upon the lotus leaf will cause that drop to go skimmering here and there, back and forth, off into the water, back on. One drop comes like this. So there’s no stability. You can see that if this one drop of water happens to be on top of that very slippery lotus leaf, it’s never in the same place for more than just a second. It’s always just in a very precarious condition. Any moment it can go, so he say, kamala dala, jeevana, talamala life. Jeevana is in a complete tumultuous. Tamala means tumultuous situation. And every moment is just, you know, from here to there. One is always in a certain turmoil, in a very difficult situation.

1 minute everything seems all right, the next minute there’s some difficulty, and this way, just like a drop of water, lotus sleep. Our life is always in a very precarious. Somehow or another, we’re trying to balance everything out, but actually, at any moment, it can just go off the edge. So practically, the world situation today seems like that. It’s just somehow they’re just balancing it, and sometimes it just goes off the edge. No one can stop, no one expects it. Suddenly the wave came from this. Still, people are thinking of the snow God, we’re independent. Where is there independence? If we’re independent of laws of nature, if we’re actually the master of our own faith, then why we can’t make a solution for our law, then we will be able to figure everything out.

But even the most intelligent, most powerful, most brilliant people, the great thinkers, they can’t figure out what to expect next or how to make the absolute solution to people’s problems. No matter what solution they make, at any moment, those same solutions can be thwarted in a second. Walt Disney, the famous atheist, he completely was anti religion. He believed that the whole concept of God was just a complete fire, as far as I understand that. So he thought that by science, we can actually, man can achieve all types of perfection. So he said that when he dies, he didn’t believe that there was really death. And then when his body stopped functioning, he had his body put into a deep freeze, a suspended animation. They found that sometimes in the glaciers, there were certain frozen animals, and we had thought them out.

They came back and they were alive. They were frozen so fast that somehow it didn’t kill them. And then when they died out, they were alive. So he took that, and when I died, freezing very quickly keep me in the freeze. And when they figure out how to bring deaf people back to life, science as it’s progressive, he saw me out and made me come back alive again. So this is very well thought out. Good plan. He had a very expensive, you know, he had enough drives or whatever, electronic people going for a long time, it was an electronic system. So then the problem came that when they were trying to figure out its inheritance, then someone raised the point. Well, he’s not really a technical senator the way he is right now. Well, he may come back again.

When science figures out how to unfreeze dead people and putting them back to life, then he may claim his property. This is creating a whole problem in the inheritance case. So finally, one of the heirs pulled the plug. Your body caught out, rotted. Then it’s about notice. Best made plants. So these materialists, they’re always making so many plants, just like Robin at one or two, right? A staircase to higher planets, where he knew that people lived for a longer period of time. This way, he could transfer all the common people to stove up to heaven. Of course, the staircase didn’t make it like this. Sounds like a babylonian tower. Isn’t that tower? Maybe there’s a parallel there. So this is a situation that the materialists, they’re always trying to jump over, always trying to avoid the laws of God.

But if they were independent and there was no God, then they would be able to make all kinds of programs and just be able to figure everything out and be independent. But actually we see that there are very stringent laws and that these living entities are under these laws. As a result, there’s no question of absolute independence. Some minute independence may be there, but absolute independence is not there. Everyone is ultimately dependent. They’re just given some minute independence. So just like a citizen in a country, it’s not absolutely independent. He’s governed by so many laws, income tax laws, behavior laws. If a person thinks that I am independent, I can do whatever I want. He finds himself in a prison house because he creates problems in society.

He starts to steal from other people, or he starts to murder, or he starts to cheat, and he becomes disturbance because he thinks his independence does whatever he feels like. So then that government catches him with their law enforcement and they put him in prison house. It’s a living entity who thinks he’s independent of the law of God. He gets put in the material world, so that doesn’t cause any problems. And here there are stringent laws, but there’s a scope that one can think is independent. But even if, although he’s allowed that illusory idea, if he acts against these laws, then he has to suffer. So when he says, Kṛṣṇa is the macrocosm and we are living in a microcosm, as they call it, whatever we see here in minute form is there on a broad scale in the total creation.

This whole material world is a very grand prison house for living entities who want to think that they are independent. So those living entities who think that they are completely independent, they are called demons, and they are kept in the species of demons in the lower planetary system. Those are the entities who through various evolutions have come to understand that there is a higher order governing the material world which is controlled by a supreme person or controlled by supreme spiritual truth. And they want to cooperate with those laws and act accordingly. But still they have material desires. They are given birth in the heavenly planets. They are known as demigods, these demons and demigods. Naturally, Kṛṣṇa will favor the demigods because they are within the prison house. They are the trustees. They are the good citizens amongst all the prisoners.

Although he’s neutral, naturally, if there’s a hell, take the side of his emigoths because they’re cooperating with him. Therefore reciprocation sides with him. But actually, if any demigod or demon actually take up the surrendering process, then Kṛṣṇa will give pardon. And from the material world that is known as liberation. Some people are already at that stage. They’re already finished with material desire, and they want to simply go back to Kṛṣṇa. So those living entities are considered to be sadhus or great spiritually advanced siddhas, perfect beings. They are at least inquirers in the truth, and they can easily be liberated from this material world if they simply surrender under the supreme personality of godhood. Now, some people have material desire, and some people already given up a desire to enjoy the material world we see here. Karla Haruni still has some material desiree.

He knew that he was not able to completely forget all material things, but at the same time, he did not want to become further implicated than he already was in material nature. Rather, he wanted from his own position to somehow make it further advancing. So he wasn’t just rushing in to a married life. He wanted to be so careful and so sure that the person that he would marry would be a proper association to actually help him elevate himself to the higher status of spiritual realization.

He can obviously consider this so important that before getting married, he performed tapasya for so long and so seriously, he did not want simply rush into it, even though he had the desire, did not want to just rush into it for some immediate type of temporary solution and find himself spiritually bankrupt because of making the wrong choice. He was, in fact, so careful that he wanted the Lord to actually help him in that choice. So we can see in the same way that sometimes devotees join the Kansas movement, and naturally, in the material world, everyone is filled with material desires, the topmost of which, of course, is sex desire. And so they feel that the immediate solution to their problems is they have to find a wife and practice Kṛṣṇa consciousness in the house of Ashram.

But actually, we can see from Cardinal Muni’s example here, he did not rush into it. Actually, he performed tapasya for a considerable amount of time, preparing himself for actually assuming this different phase of life. Similarly, those devotees who take the time to build himself up spiritually to try to practice the brahmacharya ashram, in all sincerity. So this is a much more authorized and safe program, and some of them may find it desirous to enter into the household life, but that should be done very carefully, as cardamoon did, and not simply rush into it because of some temporary agītātion or desire that shoots up a little bit.

One should rather very carefully consider everything and take the blessing of the Lord and his representative for entering into to establish a life which would not hinder one’s progress to self realization, but which would, if properly done, help one to advance the Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So these are all very practical considerations, and these are very helpful considerations for every devotee. We can see so many examples in the material world of how people are running after their senses and with their whole life, they don’t get any spiritual benefit. So when someone is actually taken as his life’s goal, to become Kṛṣṇa conscious, to become self realized, God realized, so then one should follow the authorized systems that are given and not at any point imitate the materials.

Actually, Kṛṣṇa talent is so designed that whether one wants to remain celebrated so alive, or whether the person wants to enter into the grihas Vashtra, husband and wife together, that in either case, the program is there that 1 may, without interrupting the devotional service in a very gradual way, a very systematic way, can proceed through life. But as soon as one tries to deviate from that program and allows the mind to just suddenly chase after objects or senses, then one sees that there’s so much disruption in the person’s emotional service.

In some cases, the person’s spiritual life is completely finished, or one makes some kind of decision which in the end they regret as being an immature decision, but for which a person then has to, so to speak, suffer or take that burden for a considerable amount of time, regretting it in the future. At least some are more fortunate than others, that they’re able to learn from their mistakes, and thus that gives them a greater dependence on the Lord. Actually, in self realization, especially in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, the more one develops his dependence Kṛṣṇa, the more independent he becomes from material loss and the more independent he becomes from material pain and pleasure. So, dependent upon Kṛṣṇa means actual independence.

In this material world, people feel that their independence is based upon depending upon their own senses, but they don’t realize that by being dependent on their own senses, they are completely slaves. But they feel that since their senses appear to be in the power.

(Side B of the Cassette)

So this is a very important point which were discussing previously that the devotees, because they’re serving Kṛṣṇa, therefore they’re alive, and the non devotees, because they’re serving dead manner, technically they’re all walking deadly. The only difference between dead matter and the materialist is that the one is moving. The materialist is moving, but his whole action is simply focused on the big manner. So in a sense there’s nothing which is truly beneficial that can come. Just like today in the world. There’s so much talk about progress. The Shia Prabhupāda, in a very pragmatic way, the Bhagavad Gda discusses how actually this so called progress which has come in the world that as a result of it, if we analyze objectively have people really become any happier, what will we understand?

Just like india, shrill Prophet gave lectures to the people there hoping that they might have a little more objective viewpoint. That before Allah, people were living in their villages and they were leading their simple lives. They had their own house with their own several acres of land and their cows and their bulls and they were thawing in the field and they were not getting much cash. But they were actually independent in the real sense. But then the british or the indian industrialists, they set up their factories and they invited the people, you please come and work for us. will pay you rs600 a month. So rs600 or $70 a month, which is what factory workers get up here to a villager who makes maybe an average rs90 a month cash but who actually has plenty of food and a nice house, everything separate.

To him it seems like, well, this is a fortune. Like a man maybe in the country is making $10,000 a month. And if you offer 50,000 in the city, the difference, of course, there being that rs600 is actually not very much in the city. When they go and work in the factory, then there’s no more independent house. They have to take some rented house. So there’s no way you can afford a rented house in a city because that cost rs1000 or rs500. So then they end up living in some kind of a slum area. Or if they’re fortunate, maybe that company will provide them some little house. But generally we see that all around these track regions like Islam area where they live. Then I work and they get their rs600 to feed their wife and kids.

But then what happens is, because they’re living there in the city, everybody drinks. They wasn’t drinking in the country so much, but there, because it’s such a hell of existence. You’re working all the time, big machines going and going, and the whole consciousness becomes barbed now, instead of being there, natural beauty, natural kind of mortal goodness situation during this terrible, passionate, ignorant situation. So naturally, they feel a lot of anxiety and a lot of pressure from the whole situation. So they have to take some drink to relieve the tension. So then so much of the money is going for drinking, and then, naturally, do some gambling. People start betting, pass the time, a little excitement. You know, it gets boring every day, the same thing, going to the factory, working.

So then little drinks brought with the boys, a little crap or a card playing, and before you know it, the wife is yelling because there’s no money. She’s blowing all the money on drinks and gambling. And then the kids are running in the street and they’re in there learning, you know, to become thieves and having all bad associations. And in this way, the whole existence becomes hellish. The children that are produced are grown up in a hellish condition, and this way the whole society gets destroyed just so that people allure. Men that come out of the village will be happy if you come into the city. So very quick matter once. We’re driving out to see Panihani, which was just on the bank of the gang. It’s a beautiful site, of course, where Lord Caitanya had his parish kind.

On the way out there, you see that this whole road is just like industrial wasteland or something. It’s so many little tea stalls and blacksmiths and all kind of just slipshod kind of shacks and things put up and factories. And then Śrīla Prabhupāda, we drive it out. He said, this is just complete help. Before, they were all big, this is all a big, rich area. There would be garden houses and beautiful estates, and you can see that. Then you can go out. You see that, oh, in the back there’s a big old mansion, but in front of it, you know, gradually, people bought all the land, and it’s become little factories and workshops, metal shops and this and that. And then there’s all kind of just, you know, metal scraps and this and that being piled up by the side of the road.

People are carving their way and so on. You can see that before all this smoke and coal dust and dirt was there, that behind there were all beautiful garden houses, and now they’re kind of in ruins and trees are coming out of. Shilipra was saying that the whole place has become very hellish. This is the result, at least here india of the advancement. India is now the fifth largest industrialized nation in the world. They don’t have any sanitation or health norms. They don’t pay for their industrialization. What happens, you see, though, is that the people, they lose the good quality. When we go preaching in the towns which are dependent upon agricultural trade, which are dependent upon anything except for industry generally, the people are very nice.

And when you go into the industrial towns, the big steel towns, you go into the towns, you find that the children that are grown up in those towns, they’re Rowdyenne, they’re disrespectful, they’re communistic, because the whole environment is so hellish that they lose their good qualities. So in an objective way, of course, we have now more war machines where people have their automobiles and they have so many things. But whether people are really any happier by all the so called, whether one can say that the people of the 19 hundreds were less happy than the people of the 1980s, obviously they didn’t miss it. They didn’t miss whatever they had, whatever they have now, they didn’t miss it.

So whether people now are any happy, whether happiness is actually dependent upon having the latest car, or whether it’s dependent upon having all the various things that people tell us in the magazines and on the billboards and on tv that we’re dependent upon, whether it’s dependent upon having the new improved soap which is improved every three months, or whether it’s dependent on having the latest fizzy soda, which makes being thirsty fun, or whether it’s dependent or product, all the new tv shows, so that people sit in front of the television and become zombies when they call them. They didn’t have a nickname for that idiot box. So actually, people are in a very bewildered state, but they’re thinking, because of all the propaganda that we’re actually happier than the people before us.

But actually, happiness doesn’t come from things in the mode of ignorance and passion. The happiness in the modes of the ignorant, ignorance and passion, this causes pain to others and ultimately pain to oneself. I mean, a person may be happy who’s in the mode of ignorance torture someone else. There are people in the world who would like to get someone and, you know, torture him very sadistically, very maliciously, and he would get pleasure from them. But that type of pleasure in the mode of ignorance is not going to do any good to people. Other people, they may get some pleasure in a similar way of being able to imagine some personal fortune, even at the expense of so many competitors.

But there are also many people may suffer in the interim, just like in Chicago, in Lake Michigan, nobody could swim in it because of all the industrial waste they put in. There are many great lakes that there are no fish cleaning this woman, because they have been all killed by industrial waste. So the government passes laws not to put your industrial waste into the river, into the lake. But then what they do is they pay off the inspector, and as soon as the night falls, they dump it all in. And in spite of all the laws and everything, it’s still cheaper to pay the inspector $20,000 bribe than to dump your industrial waste wherever they work, but not in the lake. So they may get some profit from that. But so many people and so many other living entities are suffering.

So somewhere in the world, this whole mad race for economic supremacy, for war supremacy, and so many different kinds of supremacy should have the lid put on it. And people should rather try to figure out how to live according to the vedas, where spiritual supremacy is actually taken as a goal of life, how to become spiritually perfect. And so that this mad race for competition can stop the communists. There is no actual solution, because there’s no spiritual goal. Ultimately, it just becomes another form of the other side of the same materialistic coil, putting people in a different mode of ignorance, at least the capitalistic system. There’s a little scope for the mode of past. In the communist system, everyone just has to work and do their duty without any hope of ever improving even material, completely stifling competition.

In some senses, competition is good, but it has to be regulated among certain class of people, who also have to be responsible for supporting the spiritual development of society. That’s the duty of a vaisha who does business, is to actually contribute and support the preaching. So the whole world right now, of course, is in such a state of affairs that people don’t know what is real happiness. They completely lost touch. They can’t figure out, wow, anybody can be happy living a natural way of life. And even devotees in the Kansas movement are naturally so affected by the culture they grow up in, by the culture that they’re living in, that in subtle and gross ways. They also are completely conditioned to artificial ways of life in many cases.

I know that one time they kept holding Śrī Lanka Prabhupāda, that liberated the world war, that he was going to perish, and what should we do? So then Śrīla Prophet said, all right, close all the temples and have everybody move to Māyāpur. And we all sit there by the side of the ghetto and chant hare Kṛṣṇa. So then the Lord is, we can’t do that. But they didn’t give a reason. In all the philosophy, he gave a reason that actually, we’re city boys. I can’t go to sleep at night if I can’t hear the sound of a refrigerator or some machine. You probably would laugh. I don’t know if I told you. Then he said that, yes, you are just like a fisherman. He told some little story, how in the village had all the.

The men would first see if there was anyone hungry before drinking their own meals. So one pious man went out and looked, and he saw there was a fisherman sitting. He had called out, is anyone hungry? He asked him, are you hungry? Have you eaten today? He said, well, no, please come and eat. But then he was smelling so much, he said he had a fish basket. I mean, if you have ever smelled a fish basket, especially, then why don’t you know that they used to carry the fish? You know, I think they’re hereditary. They handed their father. They smell so bad that you don’t need. You can just go about 100 yards down the road. So the man said, you have to keep your basket outside the house. So then he brought him in the courtyard.

He fed him and then took his own meal. And then he asked the man that, well, it’s already late. Do you have a place to stay? He said, well, I live far by the ocean side and difficult to be returned. Well, you stay here tonight, but leave your basket outside. So the man was sleeping, and in the middle of the night, the householder got up. He had a nature call. So then he noticed that the man was tossing and turning in his sleep. How are you having a night’s sleep? He says, no, I haven’t got a business. I said, well, what’s the matter? Is there anything wrong? Well, just one thing. He says, I can’t sleep without being near my basket. And he got used to the smell. So then prophet laughed and laughed. You are american.

This, like you cannot smell sleep without being near a machine. Must be some telephone, a tape recorder. Some machine has to do that. Without that smell of the machine, when I can’t sleep. So we think that if we have plenty of machines, that’s happiness. And of course, presently the Japanese are more expert at making new machines, so they’re booming. Unfortunately, we don’t find people becoming quite happy. But at least the Japanese are getting rich. We hope our temple there will go. So this is all difficulty. Karnavamuni, he was much more intelligent. Of course, he could understand that. One had to be dependent upon Kṛṣṇa to be really independent. And being dependent upon the material world was no dependence at all. But at the same time, he was not able to completely give up all desire.

So he came to the decision that he wanted to get married, but he wanted to have a companion who would actually help. In spiritual life, initially, one has to be practical, of course. Where a person stands in spiritual life, one should artificially try to make himself out to be eternal associate of the Lord. If one is not, one should know what level one stands. There are the symptoms in the negative devotion. There are various symptoms in the scripture, how contaminated one is or how purified one is. One can more or less get some kind of an index. And one should be careful not to overestimate oneself. There’s no harm in many cases in underestimating, because the spiritual master and senior devotees, they can always over, always evaluate us higher.

They feel like we should take the humble position and be a little bit pragmatic in terms of where we actually stand in spiritual life. And accordingly, we try to do whatever is pleasing to Kṛṣṇa and try to elevate ourselves to the philosophical consciousness. So the whole society needs this kind of resurrection, needs to have the lidpurad, the whole type of powder cake which has been created, which is about to blow up any time. It needs to be a little bit soaked with the chanting of Hari Kṛṣṇa, with the nectar of the tears of love coming from our chitanya, so that the wet gunpowder won’t explode. Otherwise, no matter what they do, it’s not going to keep it from exploding. The present competition in the world and all the different spheres is simply flaming and banning the fire.

And it’s only by the flood waters of Wo Chaitanya’s mercy that they’re going to put that fire out of. Even in the field of religion, there’s a big competition and India, all the missionaries are going and they’re competing like anything who can convert. Unfortunately, the methods are so abominable that one wonders what actual benefit is actually done by these missionaries. A person is living on his farm and he’s, well, you know, maybe not know very much about Kṛṣṇa consciousness, because hardly anyone preaches God consciousness amongst the hindu society anymore, especially amongst the poor people. They meet a lot of preaching there. Also, most of the saddam, sadhus and sannyasis are generally mayabadi, and they’re more interested in preaching to the rich people, getting some big donations to build their ashram.

In fact, when we opened up our Namhad program, this was something which attracted praise from all quarters they thought this is a real symptom that khans is not like every other saddle and only going for the rich people. They’re going to the poor people also. This means that they’re actually interested in the welfare of the spiritual life of the people. People like this meeting in America when you actually are doing something for the people and it doesn’t appear to be immediate economic response for that. That seems to reinforcement of faith that actually they’re trying to really help spiritualize the people. So india they also have the same idea that by serving the common people this is something very good. And in fact, the Christians, though, they have huge resources, the Muslims have huge resources from the petrodollar.

They go in to one of these common villagers and they tell them, listen, you become a Christian, here’s thousand bucks, here’s your new house, here’s chickens and pigs, this is your new income. And most of them still, they don’t bite it. So what they do is they go into the tribal areas where they’re not even really, they’re not actually either tribals. And so then they teach them how to wear clothes and they go like that. They’re helping the people, no doubt, but in many cases they’re going into this and they’re just kind of buying off people and they’re training on how to become eaters of pig and chicken and this and that. How did this become?

And so what they do is immediately they adopt the western ways and the boys and girls are listening to all western music and they just become more degraded than they ever were before in the name of, you know. But they’re scratching up the course more card more, you know, sending back home to the folks. Missionaries scratched up another hundred heathens and they’re safe. We got them to eat meat, we got them to do disco dancing, we got them to take contraceptives, we got them to do all these things. So this is the progress report that they send back another christian. So what is actually gained by this great missionary work that’s going? Maybe the people who are just their complete tribals in the hills, they’re actually being benefited to some extent.

But in general there’s no actual, real benefit because the people are not actually trained to love God. They’re just trained to swear to some other type of allegiance. But they’re never given actually any understanding of God and actually trained to love and serve God. They just both worship God for your material benefit the same as everyone else is doing. So the point is that no real eternal benefit can be gained by that. That wasn’t the purpose that all these religions were created. The ultimate purpose is that one should love the Lord, their God with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their mind. And Kṛṣṇa consciousness is based simply upon that ultimate goal of religion. To actually bring welfare in the whole world. That is needed to be preached amongst people in a very practical way, just to keep the congregation.

What is the use of allowing the bingo to be played in the basement and allows the regular kami, regular kind of materialistic rock and roll dancing to be done in the basement of the church? This is the people coming to church. He turned the church into a brother, so people will go there. What’s the use? The real thing is that people should be trained to love God. And if that isn’t done, then it’s all. If one is not trained to develop love and attraction to actually worshiping the Lord, if they don’t get any transcendental pleasure out of actually performing their devotional activities to God, then any of them is all simply wasted time just to keep them in the fold. If they have to resort to other needs. It’s already dead. It’s already finished.

God isn’t dead, but the love of God and people that is not. Therefore this movement of Jaytali, Mahatma Guru has come to reestablish love for God, love for Kṛṣṇa. And everyone should appreciate that. Now it’s our responsibility to present it to the people can appreciate it. This is what’s actually missing in society. God is not dead. Love for God, the love for Kṛṣṇa is dying. And many people it’s already dead to believe in God. I believe in God. I believe in the constitution of the United States of America, so help me God. What does that mean? If you break every line of book. But I believe that there is a constitution. I believe there’s a constitution. I believe there’s God. Why not? Sure, 93% of people I believe that is God. Why not?

But then if you don’t love him, if you don’t follow him, if you don’t know him, if you don’t, what’s the use? That’s just, you know, I believe there’s an american government, but that’s about the extent of it. So now it actually bring people to realize who they are. Who is the supreme personality? A guy that what is this human life? That is what’s needed. People should misunderstand. It’s not enough. I believe, I believe. If you believe, I believe you’re okay. You’re saying you believe, believing is one thing, following is the actual thing. And then bringing other people to the perfection platform that is very dear to Kṛṣṇa. So this is the movement of Chaitanya Mahathrabhu. Perfect yourself in your relationship with Kṛṣṇa and then help others. Any questions? And you said that was first class thing. Lotus sleep.

I believe the order is lotus sleep. Leaf gold. Then I remove banana leaves. That’s a velvet grass. And then earthen. This one. I am not sure whether silver is before. The banana leaf is also higher than grass. Here in. I don’t know really. Culture, the true father talks in the books takes about the element of untimely death. So has this civilization actually increased the instant untimely death? In previous ages, the people would live for a certain span of years. And the father would never see the son die before him. But now it seems that terminal dying. I didn’t read the article, but I saw headline in the sports section of the paper that said, name of some boy, age 18, football star Wilson Rye, died of cancer even 50 years ago, who never heard of cancer.

So is it so much karma that they die untimely? Or is it untimely? Meaning that it’s even beyond. Beyond karma? Well, not beyond karma. So it’s according to karma than how they have such bad karma that they’re not even allowed to live out the natural quota of time, which is normally allotted to a human being going through birth, going through all the middle of the natural cycle. So they’re not even allowed to finish that cycle because they’re committing so many kind of decarbons, so many kind of activities in this life and previous life which are against the laws of nature. They’re not even given the actual natural course of life. But they have to die some suddenly vicious, violent or painful death, which is considered to be the result of background.

Imagine a boy, 18, that’s got filled with so many desires to make him success, to satisfy this desire to enjoy to this day. And then he has to die. That’s the result. He dies in a complete frustration that a person only who caused another person to die untimely maybe killed someone in his previous birth in a street fight or something or whatever. So as a result of this life, he had to also suffer some kind of thing like that. But he had to in the crime of his life. Because the performance, so many simple activities, there’s a possibility that someone may be an innocent. And because of the leaders are probably misleaders. They are misdirecting that they become victims by civilization. They become victims of civilization. Everyone has choice. It’s like it says in the bay.

The man and the woman, they both equally enjoy when they have their sexual relations. So, you know, the one can always weigh it on the other. But ultimately, both are considered that no one is innocent because they’re both creating the same equal share of sense gratification. So the point is, of course, because the whole civilization is godless. People that come into the civilization, they are more and more implicated. Therefore, where is the question of independence? They’re not independent because they’re born in a materialistic civilization. They are offered the alternatives of this shade of materialism or that shade of materialism. Whichever shape they choose, they are going to have to. We are alternative, positive alternative. The alternatives that they have in front of them, neither, none of them are positive. They differentiate. So what Kṛṣṇa consciousness is doing is offering a positive alternative.

If we don’t offer them a positive alternative, then who will? I think Cardinal Mooney saw the Lord. That he didn’t forget his material desires. Speaking in terms of the comparison, that story about dreams, the person has material desires even when we see the Lord. Able to truly see the Lord in the real spiritual sense. Describes the Brahma Sangh that one has to have a sound of love on the eye. Because of the fazier, he was purified from sinful reactions. But still he had the desire in his heart. Somehow the Lord benedict him because he had not actually developed love for Kṛṣṇa. Therefore, even he saw Kṛṣṇa Vishnu form just like the yogis. When they see paramātmā, they don’t always develop love for the paramogm. Sometimes they have different misconceptions. So paramount.

Although he saw form of the Lord because of his material desires, he was not able to immediately develop their love. Therefore, Chaitanyas mercy is so great that he’s giving us the benediction of developing love for Kṛṣṇa. Then when we actually see Kṛṣṇa, then what is purified we can understand. Also it’s a question of the mercy of the Lord. He may reveal his form. What extent he will actually benedict the devotee depends on his own mercy. Partly on the desire of the devotion. It doesn’t depend on the desire to devote. But part of it had a particular desire. He could have benefited Karamaneh more. But for some reason Agar Mooni didn’t get that dimension. Cause this mercy didn’t give cause that give that extent. We know that in Dhruva Maharash he revealed this. For Dhruva, Maharashtra actually became completely attracted to love.

For he didn’t want to eat maturity of again returning to Karna muni. He can also possibly read into this. He can read into this the danger of material sex design. Guamarge had no sexism, but he had some desire for a kingdom. But somehow he was still able to develop love for God when he saw him. Carter Rooney had still had some sex desire. Even though he saw the Lord, he couldn’t develop your love for him at that point. So that’s the big hurdle when one can actually conquer over desire. To satisfy that particular desire, 50% of the matter is done. So ultimate issue is that the Lord, he has to lift his mind from that devotees eyes. Now, if one gets the mercy of some devotee of the Lord, gets the salve of love, then it’s very easy.

And if one doesn’t have that special mercy from a devotee of the Lord, and if the Lord doesn’t lift the martyr, even when you see the Lord, it’s like you’re seeing colored glasses. You can see the Lord, but the full appreciation doesn’t manifest. Just like Kṛṣṇa was personally present, so many people saw they did develop because they were covered by light. Obviously, cardinal money is much less covered, but still some covering is there. So it’s up to the Lord. It’s not like it’s up to the Lord to actually give his mercy. That one, my ears lifted. Kind of moody. Didn’t really want to have the Māyā until they lifted. At that time, he had other desire to fulfill that desire. If his mind was completely lifted, then we wouldn’t be thinking about fulfilling that desiree. And so the Lord, I believe also, right?

So the point is that he had a specific function to perform. He wanted to appear in the world. So he left his devotee with that desire so that he could appear and he could appear anyway, so he could manifest his past. So sometimes the Lord keeps the devotee in some certain covering to fulfill some objective. He had Carboni, had this desire to marry, but ultimately he had Kabila Booni as his son. So you can understand that in some pastime of the lord, why devotee was able to see him and still had the desire to marry. That this particular instance, it was superior desire of the lord to perform this fasthand. So just like Arjuna was put into Māyā, so that he could speak about so by the lord. Shows, teaches people in general, including devotees.

Sometimes devotees are kept in different states of consciousness so that he can teach non devotees. For the devotees, it’s a temporary phase, but actually the whole thing is under the shelter of the water. So there’s no real danger. The devotee is used as an example by the lord because he’s always fixing his service to Kṛṣṇa. So there’s no danger. It may appear danger, but because the devotee is a devotee, it’s just like if you know how to swim and go somewhere in the water knows how to swim. It looks like it’s a dangerous situation. But then you swim back to the shore. So actually it appears like if they put someone in the water, someone is actually devoted to Kṛṣṇa. Even if you put a little covering over them, that because they’re devoted, they never give up holding Rani Kṛṣṇa, they come back.

And this way Kṛṣṇa shows how everyone else should come to Kṛṣṇa. Everyone else should become the gummy Kṛṣṇa. Sometimes he uses a devotee to show some examples. But because the devotee never gives up all the Yogī Kṛṣṇa, he only uses such a body that will never give up the holy ghat. There’s never any test that’s given someone which so great that we cause one to give it up just alone. Unless it was actually his own desire. There’s always enough strength in order to keep on moving. And if one is desiring that my exile. So the devotees they protect, they’re more merciful than Kṛṣṇa. If a person is not sincere, Kṛṣṇa will let them go away. That is his independence. But the devotee is more merciful. Sometimes even devotees directly criticize fiction. That why you allow your devotee to fall away.

Even it was a little insincere, you should be worse than that regard. He allows his mercy to be given to his devotees. That’s his mercy. And the devotee goes and preaches to such people who are in religion. But usually they consider spiritual master. Because he’s more merciful than Kṛṣṇa in that he is actively embassy which Kṛṣṇa doesn’t himself personally do. What Arjuna offer asks what’s the actual way to reach you. He said, sir, I know if you’re in a city, that means you don’t follow. But if he obtains a mercy in the future and then if he has some fall down or there’s something, is it that. It’s that the body’s desire is a christian plan to show some.