19821224 Caitanya-caritāmṛta Ādi-līlā 7.140

The following is an evening darsana, given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on December 24th, 1982 at Murari Sevaka Farm in Mulberry, Tennessee. The class begins with a reading from the Śrī Caitanya-Caritamrta Adi-lila Chapter 7, Verse 140.

Jayapatākā Swami: They used to criticize Lord Caitanya that, “What type of a, you know renounced person is Lord Caitanya? He’s singing and dancing. He should just be sitting down and reading books, and not singing and dancing. As a sannyāsī, or someone who’s in the renounced spiritual order, He should be very sober and simply si… and not sing and dance, but of course, Lord Caitanya explained to them that this is no ordinary singing and dancing. He’s singing the names of Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, you see, and that point, Lord Caitanya, He’d explain to them.

svarupa-aisvarye tanra nahi māyā-gandha
sakala vedera haya bhagavan se ‘sambandha’

“In His original form the Supreme Personality of Godhead is full of transcendental opulences, which are free from the contamination of the material world. It is to be understood that in all Vedic literature the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the ultimate goal.”

tanre ‘nirvisesa’ kahi, cic-chakti na mani
ardha-svarupa na manile purnata haya hani

Translation (by Śrīla Prabhupāda): “When we speak of the Supreme as impersonal, we deny His spiritual potencies. Logically, if you accept half of the truth, you cannot understand the whole.

Purport: In the Upaniṣads it is said:

oṁ pūrṇam adaḥ pūrṇam idaṁ
pūrṇāt pūrṇam udacyate
pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya
pūrṇam evāvaśiṣyate

This verse, which is mentioned in the Īśopaniṣad, Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad and many other Upaniṣads, indicates that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is full in six opulences. His position is unique, for He possesses all riches, strength, influence, beauty, knowledge and renunciation. Brahman means the greatest, but the Supreme Personality of Godhead is greater than the greatest, just as the sun globe is greater than the sunshine, which is all-pervading in the universe. Although the sunshine that spreads all over the universes appears very great to the less knowledgeable, greater than the sunshine is the sun itself, and greater than the sun is the sun-god. Similarly, impersonal Brahman is not the greatest, although it appears to be so. Impersonal Brahman is only the bodily effulgence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but the transcendental form of the Lord is greater than both the impersonal Brahman and localized Paramātmā. Therefore whenever the word Brahman is used in the Vedic literature, it is understood to refer to the Supreme Personality of Godhead.”

So, here it’s explained that although there are certain philosophers… today in the West it is very popular to believe in the Brahman or to believe that ultimately the Supreme Truth is  just pure energy, without any quality, without any energy and to realize that undifferentiated type of energy level as being the highest state of consciousness … well, these verses confirm that such a energy or such a spiritual reality exists, and some philosophers and seekers of the truth are able to see that, but actually that is just the… that is just the first step, that actually to see Kṛṣṇa or to understand that that is just like the light coming from the sun and Kṛṣṇa is far beyond that.

Actually Kṛṣṇa is far greater than that. This is something that should be understood. So then, Lord Caitanya went on to explain:

bhagavān-prāpti-hetu ye kari upāya
śravaṇādi bhakti--kṛṣṇa-prāptira sahāya

Translation: It is only by devotional service, beginning with hearing, that one can approach the Supreme Personality of Godhead. That is the only means to approach Him.

Purport (by Prabhupāda): Māyāvādī philosophers are satisfied simply to understand Brahman to be the sum total of knowledge, but Vaiṣṇava philosophers not only know in detail about the Supreme Personality of Godhead but also know how to approach Him directly. The method for this is described by Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu as nine kinds of devotional service, beginning with hearing:

śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ
smaraṇaṁ pāda-sevanam
arcanaṁ vandanaṁ dāsyaṁ
sakhyam ātma-nivedanam
(Bhāg. 7.5.23)

One can directly approach the Supreme Personality of Godhead simply by executing the nine kinds of devotional service, of which hearing about the Lord is the most important (śravaṇādi). Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu has very favorably stressed the importance of this process of hearing. According to His method, if people are simply given a chance to hear about Kṛṣṇa, certainly they will gradually develop their dormant awareness or love of Godhead. Śravaṇādi-śuddha-citte karaye udaya (Cc. Madhya 22.107). Love of God is dormant in everyone, but if one is given a chance to hear about the Lord, certainly that love develops. Our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement acts on this principle. We simply give people the chance to hear about the Supreme Personality of Godhead and give them prasāda to eat, and the actual result is that all over the world people are responding to this process and becoming pure devotees of Lord Kṛṣṇa. We open hundreds of centers all over the world just to give people in general a chance to hear about Kṛṣṇa and accept Kṛṣṇa's prasāda. These two processes can be accepted by anyone, even a child. That we’ve seen tonight.

“It doesn’t matter whether one is poor or rich, learned or foolish, black or white, old or still a child — anyone who simply hears about the Supreme Personality of Godhead and takes prasāda is certainly elevated to the transcendental position of devotional service.”

So here, the stress is given about hearing, that actually, hearing and chanting, this is the basic… the basic activity of Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, that if we regularly hear about Kṛṣṇa, if we chant:

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare

and hear about Kṛṣṇa then it’s very easy to just automatically make advancement in spiritual life. So that’s why it’s so important to live in a spiritual place, where a person can regularly hear about Kṛṣṇa from devotees.

Even… one time I heard… I saw Śrīla Prabhupāda was sitting down and listening to one of his tapes, and then he saw that we were watching, and he said that, “Is… Kṛṣṇa is speaking through, so, even to hear again is no harm.” (laughter)

The point is even Prabhupāda would have different disciples speak, “You speak.”, and he would listen. Actually, one… in Vṛndāvana, they placed… they… Prabhupāda had a disciple sit even… almost as high as he was, even it might have been higher, because the particular seat… the Bhāgavatam was very high, and Prabhupāda said to respect the Bhāgavatam, you don’t lower the Bhāgavatam; you raise the speaker. It’s not that anything to do with… someone was saying, “Well, he’s higher than you.” Not that, Prabhupāda said… the point is that, it’s for respecting the Bhāgavatam. The Bhāgavatam, or the sacred books that glorify Kṛṣṇa… actually, there are temples in India, just uh, dedicated to the Bhāgavatam. People put the Bhāgavatam on the altar, and they perform regular pūjā and ārati to it, instead of the Deity.

Sometimes you see that, you know… regularly, I always find that someone puts the Bhāgavatam, just on a lower place, where I am sitting, but then… after being in India so long… and plus, I… seeing how Prabhupāda would treat the śāstra… these books are actually like incarnations of God, in book form. So, we always keep a little higher, out of respect, because it’s by hearing the words that are recorded in these transcendental literatures that pure… the consciousness becomes purified.

The whole secret: śravaṇādi-śuddha-citte karaye udaya (Cc. Madhya 22.107) is that our consciousness is originally pure, but it’s been covered, you see. Just like if you have a window and it gets dirty, you have to clean it off. Mahāprabhu said, “Ceto darpana-mārjanaṁ”, you clean off the mirror of the consciousness by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. So, by this hearing process, the consciousness is actually cleansed.

When the consciousness is cleansed, then the śuddha-citte, or the pure consciousness can again manifest itself. So, it’s very important to regularly hear the Bhāgavatam. Bhāgavata nitya-sevayā, in fact, it’s recommended that one should daily hear the Bhāgavatam.

By a daily practice of listening to the Bhāgavatam, which is the literatures especially glorifying the Supreme Personality of Godhead, then it’s very easy for one to develop that spiritual awareness, because the spiritual awareness is within us. It’s not something foreign. It’s something that is always there, within us.

Simply, it has to… the… the… the false identification… the false identification where we identify ourself with this body, we identify ourself with the things of the body… the pro… byproducts of the body, this identification has to be transferred to where we identify ourself as a pure spirit soul, and we identify ourself as a servant, or as the part of Kṛṣṇa, you see, that we’re part of the total Absolute Truth.

It’s not that we are independent. In the modern world, people are very attached to their "independence", you see. They think that if they can wander in the forest, naked or something, that that somehow, is some kind of freedom. Whether they’re doing that, or whether they’re running in the city, or whether they’re going just whatever hits their mind, if they do it, still that’s no freedom, in the real sense.

Everyone is dependent. Even in this world, we’re dependent on air. We’re dependent on light. Suddenly we’re dependent on water. We’re dependent on so many things. It’s not that we’re independent. Ultimately that dependence can be traced back to a dependence on God, so when one actually directly is dependent upon God, then one is independent of everything else, because everything is ultimately resting on Him.

When you do… when you’re directly under His shelter, directing… resting on Kṛṣṇa, then immediately, you do become independent, but otherwise, it’s simply a question of what a person is dependent upon. Either on one’s material situation, on certain designations, on certain situations, on certain intoxications, or crutches for the consciousness, something is there that we learn to depend upon, and we try to get some strength from that, but unless it’s Kṛṣṇa, all those uh, shelters are simply fallible soldiers, which let us down, in the ultimate issue. So the real thing is to develop our dependence on Kṛṣṇa, which is natural, and that is actual independence.

Being a part of the total universal order, we cannot be completely independent, neither we can separate ourself, and look apart at the whole thing uh, in some objective way. We’re a subjective part of the total universe, of the total creation. We’re not in that complete, uh, objective uh, separate uh, aloof situation, nor can we ever attain such a vision. That’s only illusion, if we think so.

The only person who’s completely, absolutely independent of everything is Kṛṣṇa, so if we’re with Kṛṣṇa, then we can get that similar viewpoint, otherwise, there’s no chance of actually seeing things in a detached way. So, rather than all this type of philosophical speculation, the very advanced devotees of the Lord, they find that it’s much more satisfying to develop simply one’s love for Kṛṣṇa and that pure love for Kṛṣṇa is what completely satisfies everyone, you see.

Actually, everything we’re loving in this world is just a partial representation of Kṛṣṇa, you see, a very minute part. So actually, we’re giving our love to so many things, but that reciprocation never comes to the extent that we actually would hope, or which could actually satisfy us. The reciprocation can only be cent-percent fully given by Kṛṣṇa, and even if someone may be satisfied well… with whatever reciprocation one’s getting in a particular material relationship, but the relationship is not permanent. It doesn’t… even if we want to stay here, we can’t, you see. Sooner or later we have to leave the, this particular body. You see, even if they give us an artificial heart and artificial liver, and artificial lung and artificial, you know, everything… by…

Just like, there was some professional boxer was recently killed in Las Vegas, a year ago, or something like that, maybe 6 months ago… may… within a year. I don’t… I mean, I don’t know the exact date. It was in the papers. So, I read it in one type of scientific magazine that they had the… you know, what happened was that inside his head, his brain had become like a sponge. He got hit with a punch that they calculated was over… over 1,000 pounds force, and it had just completely caused hemorrhaging and all that, in his brain.

So then, as a result, I mean he died, but they had… so they had the machines. They have artifi… they have respiration machine, and liver machine, they have everything so even though his… technically speaking, his brain had completely stopped, it was disconnected from the rest of the body. It was all filled up with blood. There was no more brain activity. The person was completely… you know, no longer able to perceive anything.

Just like, even you’re… if you’re in the body, but if you can’t perceive anything… like I went to the dentist yesterday. So, the person gave a Novocain shot, and he said that, “I’m giving up here, in the nerve.” He gave me a little lesson. “Actually, you’re going to feel… Your nerves here, on the tooth are actually feeling it, but when the impulse goes to your brain, because we’ve blocked it off, here, with Novocain, your brain can’t feel it. So, that’s why you don’t feel any pain.”

So, it’s like that, even if… even, you’re blocked off, you see. Even in his situation, he co… if you can’t perceive anything from the body, so they say, “That’s technically death.”, you see. As soon as they turned off the respiration ma… even there, they kept the heart beating for three days, but the brain was completely… there was no more impulse. There was no more electric wave, anything. That’s what they describe nowadays, as death. They turned off all the machines, he died. But u… up to that point, they had all the machines pumping and everything seemed to be going, except they could see that in his brains, there was no waves… in his brain… well by that point they were brains, scrambled. (laughter)

So this is the kind of situation, that actually this body is a machine, you see. It can only take so much. It can only take so much. You can only pound it with so many pounds of force, and pretty soon it stops functioning. Similarly, as long as we’re trying to… just as there’s a limit of how much pain you can take, there’s also a limit, how much pleasure you can get out of this body, you see.

I know there’s so many big singers and ex-singers… late singers, and… that tried to get more and more happiness out of the body. They OD’d. They overdose on one thing, or the next, and they die, because there’s a limit how much you can get out of this body. Doesn’t go beyond that, you see.

But we want more happiness than what this body could possibly give, so that real happiness that we’re hankering for is Kṛṣṇa. That real happiness lies beyond the body. That’s why in trying to achieve that happiness, we’ll kill the body. If we try through some kind of mechanical or chemical or whatever, means. But, if we try to achieve that happiness by chanting and hearing about Kṛṣṇa, then automatically, a person becomes purified and achieves that happiness.

When one achieves that spiritual happiness, then one becomes satisfied. When one’s satisfied, one could care less with everything that people say. So many people say, “Well, why should I chant Hare Kṛṣṇa? How will I know if I chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, that I’ll be satisfied? Will I really be satisfied?” So on and so forth. The point is a person, “How will I know if I’m satisfied?” They ask all these kinds of foolish questions. If a person chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, and if he’s satisfied, you don’t have to… he doesn’t have to ask someone else.

Just… I was… not only today, but every day, I’m given prasāda. I don’t have to ask someone else, am I full now? People will think the person, “What’s wrong with him?” You don’t say, “Am I full now?” “Why ya asking me for?”, you see. (Devotees laughing)

Bhagavad-Gītā says that uh, there’s the kṣetra-jña. Goes into the… this is one of the points of the Vedānta-sūtra, that the field and the knower of the field. That, this body is a field, and we are the knower of the field.

I know my body, huh? Vrajendranandana knows his body. Someone else knows their body, like that. Everybody knows his own body, her own body. But, if a mosquito lands on Vrajendranandan’s hand and bites him, I can say, “Watch out. There’s a mosquito there.” But I don’t feel anything, but he’s feels it, you see. He’ll feel it… if he’s awake, he’ll feel it. If he’s not, he’ll wake up, probably. (Devotees laughing)

So that way, each of us, we’re conscious of our body, but Kṛṣṇa’s conscious of the whole universe. That’s the real universal consciousness. So, if we link up with Kṛṣṇa… not that then, “Oh, we become conscious of everyone’s pain and pleasure.”, in that sense, but at least we become in harmony with the supreme consciousness, and then our consciousness can also rise above simply being conscious of the body and we start to become actually, spiritually aware.

So, then one can become little detached from the body. The pain and pleasure of the body no longer is an absolute factor for one. It’s just relative… in it’s relative position, because one has already achieved the higher happiness, the higher experience, and that… that one that’s satisfies… when one… he doesn’t have to ask someone else, “Am I satisfied?” You know that, “This is greater than anything I’ve experienced before.” Recently in this… You’ve seen the new book, “Chant and Be Happy”? That in that art… in that interview with George Harrison, he very vo… he very, you know, boldly just says what he feels about chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. He says that's the greatest happiness he’s ever experienced in his life, and he’s tried, you know, everything, is through chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, you see.

Even though he’s not a formal member of the Kṛṣṇa conscious movement, in one sense, but he does chant, every day 16 rounds, and he follows most of the principles, if not all of them, most of time, if not all the time (laughter). We don’t know. He’s not under our… our surveillance or anything, but we know that basically he leads a pretty pure life, far as we know.

So, because of that, he’s able to experience that happiness. So, then, why not anyone else? So, the whole way of open the door, how did he start? He heard. By hearing. If people just come and hear, everything can develop from there.

There’s a story about one thief. There’s a group of thieves. They were escaping from… from the king’s men. This is in ancient, ancient India, and uh, one of them hid in one of the hermitages. The king’s… you know, the police… king’s men, they went by looking around and they… in the meantime, when he was hiding in the hermitage there, there was a Bhāgavatam class going on, and the speaker was talking about laws of karma, about how for every acti… action we do, we have to accept the reaction, purpose of life. Just a few… he was there just a few minutes, while he was h… and he listened, while that class was going on. Then, when the police, or king’s… whatever you want to call them, they went, he ran off, but in that few minutes, that seed had been planted in his consciousness. He couldn’t forget, and eventually, just from that short listening, he actually became a devotee.

So, we cannot underestimate the power of hearing, because the consciousness, is simp… it’s covered, and if it hears enough, finally, it starts to wake up. Just like a man in a coma. What do they do? They start calling his name. You know, “Hey Jeff. Jeff.” You know, whatever his name is, and then they bring people that he knows, until finally something (snaps fingers), clicks.

And he can remember that, “I’m so and so, and yes. This is my sister, and this is my brother and this is this.” And then, his remembrance comes back, so in the same way, it’s like we’re in a spiritual coma. We’ve forgotten our original relationship with Kṛṣṇa, or sambandha. We’ve forgot our original spiritual position.

But, by hearing, that remembrance comes back, and when finally we hear enough, and things start to make enough sense… just like a person hears enough: his name, this other name, that… he can draw in enough of a relation, that everything comes back, like that, if a devotee… as he continues hearing, finally, everything is revealed, and he remembers Kṛṣṇa and he remembers even his own original position.

He can even know how he got into this material world. How he left the spiritual world, which is our original abode. This material world is dark. Now we look out, there’s no light, because it’s basically dark, where the spiritual world is always lit. It’s always light. You see.

So, part of that spiritual world is covered by a cloud, and that cuts off all the light, and we’re the little bubbles in that cloud, that big cloud, there’s so many little bubbles which are universes, and we’re in that universe.

So each universe is dark. If it wasn’t for the sun, the universe would be completely dark. It is dark. It’s only the sunlight that lights it up. Kṛṣṇa places the sun in the universe to create light. Otherwise, by nature, the universe is dark, but in the spiritual world, there’s no need.

Bhagavad-Gītā explains there’s no need for electricity, sunlight or moonlight. It’s always… ever-effulgent, you see. So, if we hear enough about Kṛṣṇa, if we chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, then we start to come back to our original spiritual position. That can never be taken away.

In fact, one is told in the… in the Vedas, that, “What is actually the use, even if one gains a whole world, if one gains so many material things? Because ultimately everything has… has to be lost in due course. That better than that, is to, even have one moment of a glimpse of the real truth, you see. Because by that, one can go on to actually achieve one’s eternal position.”, you see.

Even if one gets a sla… slight association with real devotees, with real transcendentalists, that… and gets a little bit of a glimpse, little bit of an idea that, “Oh, this is, there is such a thing as absolute truth. There is such a thing as eternal existence. It actually has some direct relation to me.” Even if one gets just the slightest, even little glimpse in his b… in his mind, then from that, that is actually a greater benediction than even if the person had millions of dollars, because by that one glimpse, that will again bring that person again and again to try to find out what is actually the real truth. What is the real purpose of life.

It’s so amazing that although all type of technological advances are being made in the Western world, so-called advances, for flying here and there, but nobody has any ultimate destination. No one has any ultimate idea that after death, what is our destination? That even, “What is the purpose of whole human civilization?” Is it simply to become consumers for the new products created by the new industries? To produce newer and newer type of machines?

Just like now, we see the funny thing, at least it’s funny to me. I don’t know. I can share my thoughts with you. You can tell me. I am seeing here, like in New Orleans, in the morning, I saw so many uh, women were jogging in the street to keep fit, and then you see, they have all the machines to make life very comfortable. So, what happens is they don’t get any exercise. They have to jog and go to health bar to keep fit.

I was seeing in India, that there, they don’t have these machines. They have to wash their clothes by hand and uh, they have to… they take the spices. They don’t buy any readymade spice. They get the raw root, like turmeric, ginger, or any kind of roots, or any type of spice. They take the raw spice and then they grind it up by hammering it. But, they’re always in top fit condition.

I never see them jogging down the road, (devotee’s laughing) but they’re just getting a little exercise and they’re always fit, you know? But, here, you gotta… everything is… buy it in the pack already, so they put all kind of chemicals in it anyway, but then everything is like readymade, so then you get, you know, flabby, or you get, you know, on a bad health, so then you have to take, you know, some special exercise to get fit, or pay hundreds of dollars to join the health spa.

So, what’s the advantage? It seemed kind of funny to me that for all our advancement, the more that people become even health conscious, they’re trying to just get back… the natural kind of simple thinking… simple living, excuse me and high thinking is a more natural way of life. Of course, if you take all the no… modern amenities, to save time, and use that time for engaging in spiritual life, because, “Well I’ve saved some time, so, now I can just go to the temple, it doesn’t even cost anything like a health bar, you can jump up and down in the temple (laughter), before the Deity.”, well that’s transcendental, you see.

So then alright, if you want to use all the machines to save time, at least use your time to practice self-realization. But if they use… take… if they… they make all the machines to save the time, and then use the time, then they go running so they can’t… to… to make up because they… all of the… you know… it’s just like, seems to me, to be… doesn’t matter whether you invent a machine, or not. If they don’t have any higher purpose of life, they’re going to give out that much energy, anyway.

Whether it’s pounding the spice, or its running in the street. Otherwise, they go… they have other problems come up. So, the real thing is that if people become fixed in self-realization, then so much unnecessary uh, things… so many unnecessary things can just be avoided. People can be actually happier. You know.

So many people may be obsessed with various type of health theories, with various type of (clears throat), ideologies, but ultimately, if they’re not leading one to real spiritual awareness, if they’re just a different obsession with some mental or physical idea, and not actually leading one to real spiritual awareness, real spiritual realization, then ultimately, it’s a waste of time.

It’s not something that one can take with one, permanently. But real self-realization, you can never lose. Just like King Bharata, you see. He took his self-realization even with him, even after several births… two births. He could remember his previous lives and he didn’t lose that spiritual awareness, you see. Although he made a few mistakes, nonetheless, his spiritual practice had helped him, and ultimately, he was successful in achieving God-realization.

So, that’s the actual purpose of human life. Now, just to sit and invent so many machines to have an easier life, and then invent other machines that you can sit in your living room and run on a… you know, one of those moving belts, because of all the other machines you invented, save so much output of energy, so now to keep a good health, you have to make another machine to run. It’s just, you know.

Then, what was tha… what was the need of all the technological advancement? To save time? For what? So that a person can just sit in front of the television and watch uh, people getting murdered? No. The actual only practical purpose of having any of these machines that we use it for serving Kṛṣṇa. Otherwise, there’s no use at all. Actually, then the machines are simply disturbance. Then, one might as well just lead in a simple life, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. You don’t need anything. And if you’re going to use the machines at all, use them somehow to help one to save more time to serve Kṛṣṇa, or to expand the service of Kṛṣṇa to reach more people. Otherwise, there’s no advantage in just saving time, or saving energy, so that then one can sit around and drink beer or something, and watch the uh… watch the football team smash their heads into each other in the Sugar bowls, and Orange bowls and etc. etc. There’s no advantage.

So, now everything is topsy-turvy. People, they work so hard to invent things to save their time, but they don’t know what to do with their time. They’re all frustrated. So that’s… they make up so many frivolous sports. They make up so many distractions, hoping that this will satisfy them.

You see the people in the airplane, some business guy, skinny guy, doesn’t look like he’s in very good shape, he’s reading some sports magazine about some basketball guy, 7 foot tall, big… see the guy’s picture. He’s looking at the picture, reading all the scams about the person, whether, you know, who’s going to win the next game, this that. What does it have to do with reality? What does it actually have to do… anything with that person’s real existence? Just, they create… just a distraction in their mind, because they don’t know what is the real thing that they should be using their spare energy on.

In Bhāgavatam, it says that religion… real religion means that which is developing our taste, our hunger for hearing about the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and any so… any religion, quote religion, in which one practice the religion, and that eagerness to know about God, about the Supreme Person, about the Absolute Truth, is not enhanced, is not created, that hunger, that taste, if it’s not created, then that so-called religion is simply a waste of time: śrama eva hi kevalam.

Simply a useless waste of energy. Nothing to show for it. The Kṛṣṇa consciousness is so effective that if someone just regularly hears the message of Kṛṣṇa, it cannot help but act, you see. And it’s not that it’s uh, some like uh, what do you call it, brainwashing or something, that one is, you see, somehow, psychologically browbeat into some kind of… no. It’s simply a natural thing.

By hearing enough about one’s eternal existence, about Kṛṣṇa, things start to make sense, and one becomes so self-situated, self-confident, self-reliant, that one is no longer dependent on all the crutches that ordinary people relate to as being necessary for existence.

Instead, one is rather depending upon the Supreme Person, and is actually working for the welfare of other living entities. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, that’s a… that’s the greatest welfare work. In most countries of the world, they appreciate that very much.

Most countries of the world, people appreciate. I was as… on a radio on New Orleans, just a week ago, four or five days ago, WGSO, and WG… GEU, FM, and so there, they… someone asked, let’s see, what did they ask? That uh, here in America, why do you… why is there not that much of a broad acceptance of the Kṛṣṇa conscious movement, something like… to that extent, and then I explained that in the Vedas there’s a saying that, ātmānam manyate jagat. As you think, you think the whole world thinks.

Just like, when I go to Peru, or South America, I don’t even go through Customs, Immigration. They just take the passport, they give me the thing in the VIP lounge. That the… all over the world, the Kṛṣṇa conscious preachers are accepted, but here, in America, anything… although this is ba… freedom of religion, everything, open-minded, but the people are so… I don’t you want to call it conservative, or whatever, that anything that’s a little bit out of the ordinary, uh, you know, there’s such a type of uh, lack of any kind of acceptance, that they’re thinking, “Well this Hare Kṛṣṇa. This is something.” But actually, it’s only even… not even in America, like, you go to New York, there’s a very broad acceptance of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement. You go in different… you go in Los Angeles, 200,000 people go to our ratha-yatra.

Even… it’s just a question of a certain number of uh, certain class of people, they have got… maybe the only the media, has got some inhibition, and they’re projecting this idea as representing the whole public, or they’re presenting this idea to the public, and trying to create that kind of an opinion, and actually misrepresenting what is the actual purpose, what is the actual nature of this movement.

Instead of actually broadcasting what we’re standing for, what we’re doing, they broadcast what they feel is the opinion of the public, or should be the opinion of the public, in regard to a Eastern r… Eastern culture being preached in America. So, this is the basic problem is that people, they just create some kind of opinion, and then they want to project that, “Everybody thinks the same way.”, but actually, it’s not that. In fact, even in political, or in other ways, America should see that the way they think, the rest of the world doesn’t happen to think that way in every case. Similarly, knowing that some Americans think about the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement is not the way the whole world thinks about the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement.

In fact, the British government just held the year of India in Britain, and the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement was uh, hand-in-hand with the British government, under… in the… in the pub… and the British government magazines and everything. Part of their, you know, one of the authorized Indian cultural extensions. It’s just that America, I don’t think they know much about Indian culture, Indian religion, or Indian spiritual movements. You see. They don’t know how to weed the chaff from the rice.

Anyway, these are just questions that came up, but generally, the public… even after he said that, the public started calling in. One lady said, “I have a picture of Kṛṣṇa, dancing on a snake… many headed snake. What is the meaning of this picture. It has on it… written on the bottom a word : K-A-L-I-Y-A. Then, I explained kāliyā-Kṛṣṇa pastimes.

Many people were calling. Actually, it’s a very favorable radio show. Just, he asked that one question cause that’s his business, you know, to create some kind of... Actually, if people simply hear what really we stand for, instead of hearing what the media presents as their opinion, if they just hear about Kṛṣṇa, then they’ll become purified. They’ll become purified.

That’s what’s so nice and… in Italy, they have made just in a short time, about 600 or 450, 600 devotees. They have 8 radio shows… 8 radio stations. Throughout the country, they have radio stations. Anywhere in the country, you can turn your radio on, and listen to the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement, 24 hours a day. That’s how… we simply let people hear about Kṛṣṇa.

I was saying actually, is we… Murari here, we should have our own radio station, I mentioned. I was suggesting to, some different devotees. Of course, we have other problems maybe, initially. People then can just start to listen about Kṛṣṇa. If they hear enough about Kṛṣṇa, they become purified.

That’s the only… actually, you know, right now there’s radio waves going right through your body. It’s one thing. You turn on your… your radio, even if you cover it up with your body, it’s still going… all these waves are going through the ether. They’re going everywhere, but the vibrations are all mundane… completely mundane vibrations. So, those are, you know, who knows what effect those are having on us?

One man was fixing an FM station… I don’t know… I heard this because we have our short-wave radio, we’re installing, and then by accident, the guy turned the switch on, on the antenna. They have to turn off, and the FM waves coming off that antenna fried the person just like a microwave oven. He died instantly. So, it… if those radio waves are so powerful that by, you know, 5,000 watt radio wave, you just stand by the antenna, if it can kill you instantly, but then, the whole world is being scattered by these waves, what is the long-term result of having these waves going through our bodies? Who knows? Right? What do you think, Bhakta Ron?

Bhakta Ron: What do you think?

Jayapatākā Swami: (laughter) So, at least, if the vibrations are Kṛṣṇa vibrations, right? (laughter) Then it will purify the atmosphere, instead, we’re getting all these vibrations. Who knows what it’s doing to us? We’re not even getting any spiritual benefit out of it. So, anyway, that’s why, give hearing about Kṛṣṇa a chance. Try hearing about Kṛṣṇa. Try ea… understanding about Kṛṣṇa and oneself. Give it a chance, and if one can achieve any peace or happiness out of it, well that’s uh, the best bargain you could ever get. Just by hearing, if you get your permanent happiness, and peace, there’s nothing better than that.

[End of Recording]