19840531 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.8.10

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on May 31, 1984 in New Orleans, Louisiana. The class begins with a reading from the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, 10th Canto, Chapter 8, Verse 10.

Hare Kṛṣṇa!

Translation: Nanda Mahārāja said, My dear great sage, if you think that your performing this process of purification will make Kaṁsa suspicious, then secretly chant the Vedic hymns and perform the purifying process of second birth here in the cow shed of my house, without the knowledge of anyone else, even my relatives, for this process of purification is essential.

*Translation with repetition*

Purport (by His Divine Grace Śrīla Prabhupāda): Nanda Mahārāja did not like the idea of avoiding the purificatory process. Despite the many obstacles, he wanted to take advantage of Garga Muni’s presence and do what was needed. The purificatory process is essential specifically for brāhmaṇas, kṣatriyas and vaiśyas. Therefore, since Nanda Mahārāja presented himself as a vaiśya, this process of purification was essential. Formerly, such institutional activities were compulsory. Cātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛṣṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ (Bg. 4.13). Without these activities of purification, the society would be considered a society of animals. To take advantage of Garga Muni’s presence, Nanda Mahārāja wanted to perform the nāma-karaṇa ceremonies, even secretly, without any gorgeous arrangements. Therefore, the opportunity for purification should be regarded as the essential duty of human society. In Kali-yuga, however, people have forgotten the essence. Mandāḥ sumanda-matayo manda-bhāgyā hy upadrutāḥ (Bhāg. 1.1.10). In this age, people are all bad and unfortunate, and they do not accept Vedic instructions to make their life successful. Nanda Mahārāja, however, did not want to neglect anything. To keep intact a happy society advanced in spiritual knowledge, he took full advantage of Garga Muni’s presence to do what was necessary. How degraded society has become within five thousand years. Mandāḥ sumanda-matayo manda-bhāgyāḥ. The human life is obtained after many, many millions of births, and it is intended for purification. Previously, a father was eager to give all kinds of help to elevate his children, but at present, because of being misguided, people are prepared even to kill to avoid the responsibility of raising children.

The human life is obtained after many, many millions of births, and it is intended for purification. Previously, a father was eager to give all kinds of help to elevate his children, but at present, because of being misguided, people are prepared even to kill to avoid the responsibility of raising children.

Thus end the Purport and Translation by His Divine Grace Śrīla Abhaya Carana Bhaktivedanta Svāmī Prabhupāda of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam Canto 10, Chapter 8, Text 10 in the matter of “Lord Kṛṣṇa Shows the Universal Form”.

[Aside: Here a news in the saṅkīrtanapur.]

Jayapatākā Swami: Mandāḥ sumanda-matayo manda-bhāgyā hy upadrutāḥ (Bhāg. 1.1.10). This is the Bhāgavatam verse that describes the situation in this Kali-yuga. mandāḥ means very bad, very unfortunate. And when you put sumanda, that means, that emphasizes it. So sumanda means in… incredibly bad. matayo - mentality mental frame. manda-bhāgyā - bad luck, bad fortune. All type of disturbances are quite natural and expected in this Kali-yuga. It is not all uncommon to find somebody completely disturbed.

In fact, being disturbed is almost considered to be a natural state by many people. When I first arrived in New York city, I asked somebody in the… one of the stores if I could have change for a dollar to make a phone call, and the person starts swearing at me, screaming. So he told me to get out of there, I wasn’t dressed as a devotee, I was just as always. He was in a very disturbed state of mind. This is the nature of the Kali- yuga that people are disturbed, they are frustrated, they are unfortunate in so many ways.

So, 5,000 years ago, the basis of the society was that the human being should become purified. They should become elevated in spiritual knowledge and they should try to achieve self-realization. But, today things have gone down a lot, and people even who are religious, so called religious, they don’t normally have any concept of anything beyond the body.

Everything is centered around the body, every activity is gauged by how a person has improved the situation for enjoying the senses, or for getting name, fame, or some kind of a facility for that body. That this body is, this life is very short period in a long series of many lives and that we should actually try to become purified in this life, so that we can transcend the the contaminations and bondages of the material world, that is generally far from everybody’s mind.

So, something in this verse is very strong statement that without these activities of purification, the society would be considered as society of animals. But it’s true. What is an animal? I’m sure everyone heard so many times, how would animal has basically four activities of eating, sleeping mating and defending themselves. This is the natural activity of animals.

So, in the modern day, Prabhupāda he spoke out that when he landed in the Australia, for instance, the newspapers… in fact Prabhupāda sent me this newspaper article when I was in Māyāpur, the newspaper men in Melbourne, they asked Śrīla Prabhupāda that, “What is the purpose of your coming here in Australia?”

Śrīla Prabhupāda said, “I have come here to save you from leading a dog’s life.”

Everybody a bit stunned. And they said, “Well, how can you say that we are living a dog’s life?” First every civilized person, they don’t consider that they are living a dog’s life, they think they are the top of the ladder. So Prabhupāda… So called civilized…

So, Śrīla Prabhupāda said, “Well, the dog is having sex, you’re having sex, a dog is eating, you are eating, the dog is sleeping, you are sleeping, dog is fighting, you are fighting, you may do things in a more complicated way, but what is the difference in the activities?” And then they all laughed and said, “Yes!” So, they put in the headlines. It was actually in the headlines of the Age, the biggest paper at Melbourne. “Svāmīji has come to save us from a dog’s life”, it said. And then the sub heading was, “He has come to hound us.” (laughter)

And then it explained, actually they were quite true to … they explained Prabhupāda’s point in the article. It was a very favorable article. The Australians have a sense of humor. Probably in America they declare war if you had said that, ahh. Hey, I don’t know, maybe they wouldn’t. But Australia, they have a very good sense of humor, so they took it in a very good way, they can laugh at themselves. That’s their… they have a kind of a slapstick humor.

So basically, this was Śrīla Prabhupāda’s intention that “Alright in the west you have everything. You have your economic development, you have good looks, you are educated, you have nice clothing, enough to eat, you have materially everything that anybody can think about having at this time. But what you are lacking is Kṛṣṇa, you are lacking spiritual culture, you see. Just with materialistic culture it’s animalistic, it becomes uh… it falls short of actually bringing the real happiness that one wants. Because the happiness that the people are running after is the happiness that you can get in the animal birth. Human birth is meant for more.

There are 8,400,000 species of life. And the soul is going from one species to the next, until finally after coming through the aquatics, the animals, the the plants, the animals, you know before that the birds, the reptiles and so many things, animals… then finally you come to the human being species. But the dog is running after you see, the… having… mating in the street, having sex in the street, so human… if they are only running after same thing, if their standard is just… alright to enjoy the senses on the same basis as the dogs…

I was in the… on the previous Nāmahaṭṭa tour, we stopped… we could see the Himalaya mountains, it was just in North Bengal, and when we traveled in India, it’s very… you know, every 100 kilometers there is a gas station but basically for… when you are travelling you want to take a shower, you want to do something, we just stopped by a river and do all our morning duties and everything there. So we were going and the sun had just come up, it was just dawn, so we stopped by the side of a river which was… which was a little cool out but because it was the winter and you could see, maybe 65 or something, somewhat cooler, not very cool but we could see the Himalaya mountains in the distance, and so we stopped the car and went down and there was a… because it was winter, hadn’t rained for some time, there was a very big river bed and the water of course was only taking up a fourth of the total area,the other was all like sand, possibly in the rainy reason they would rage and snow from the mountains just come down.

So went to take our to take our bath, and as we were going down we saw… when we were taking a birth we saw two dogs there, and dogs were having a good time, they were biting each other, smelling each other, running around, tsh tsh, running here… I mean really playing around, having a great time you know, and then you could see, well you know, they were having a good time, they were very happy, in their… in their frolicking and play and… and then we walked just a little bit further, and there was a… was a…. a skull, and one of the dogs had been licking out inside of it, and it was completely dried, looking out in the sand, bare eyes, teeth, looking up and there was just like right before you could see you know well, here is the animal life and here is what the end of the animal life is.

You know, you enjoy the body and at the end of it you are… everything is… the dead body is there, and in the end, you see that you know. You see it is not and in town you see sometime… people, they normally cremate the bodies but if somebody is very poor, they will pay somebody to take the body down, cremate it. People might be cheaters fore-porters or, they call them coolies there, but fore-bearers, take the body down to burn it, and if there is nobody looking, they’ll sell the wood and throw the body in the river, and let it go and downstream the dogs get it, and like that.

So… Sometimes you see these cad…what you call them cadavers? And in the West normally people of course don’t see such things. They don’t see, what are the different stages of life, what happens to the body, but there it was kind of just revealing. I was just maybe a little philosophical, that people play around and different things, but I mean the body after all isn’t going to stay around forever and whatever the people in the world are enjoying, basically the same kind of happiness, playing around, or… the dogs I mean, they were really getting into it with each other, enjoying all different kind of sports and enjoyments that whatever, you know so maybe here we have a Ferris Wheel, and we have different you know discotheque, same basic activities, it’s not like that much different, same enjoying mood.

So they… they took a poll apparently in Europe, that what would people like to be in their next life. And in France the men said that they would like to be either a dog or a horse in their next life. And the woman said they would like to be either a cat or snake. (laughter) Because I mean uh… of course they don’t think that what a wonderful opportunity it is to be a human being. They are just thinking that the purpose of life is to enjoy, so a dog is carefree, doesn’t have any problem, can just you know, lay in the sun or play around, doesn’t you know… human being means you got to work, this is what they are thinking. You know have some headache, or have anxiety, or something like that. Because we’ve made society so complex, you know, whatever the woman thinking about being a snake, I don’t know but anyway that’s the French women’s opinion, apparently the Italian woman had a different idea but I… (laughter) I don’t… I don’t remember whatever that was.

But basically, people are very confused about life. And you know they may take it all with a sense of humor or they may take it very lightly, but actually it is a very serious business. That being a human being we should be very careful not to again fall back down in the animal kingdom, we should become purified, in fact we should be elevated far out of this, this range of life.

We are born with advanced intellect, not just to use it to work so hard and invest money and make huge industrial complexes and make you know, fantastic investments in the stock market and become multi-millionaires, so that we can like our Fisher Mansion in Detroit, so he can build a nice place to where he had a ball room so he could dance and drink and big bedrooms and big bathrooms with gold handles, and that’s basically, so… just they can have a nice comfortable living, and they think that is success.

I just uh… somebody handed me a book, a couple of days ago, I just opened it up to a page, and it said that well, “One thing you have to realize is that, along with success there are many frustrations, you have to know that being “successful” doesn’t mean you are going to be happy. But you have to be satisfied with being successful, even though you are not happy.” (laughter) Thanks. Don’t need that book.

So this is the basic, they think that… they are trying, they… they define what is to be successful. But if you have, this, this, this material things, then you are successful. And then it may… you are not going to be happy, there so ma.. you know, you may have a big house, but you know, you may get divorced, you may have many children but they may all become you know misled, misguided, or you may have this but they all… become very frustrating, and then… you know. So in other words, just to suit this misguided society they have created false standards of success.

The Vedic standard is very simple, person should be happy, if you are not happy what is the meaning of success? And happiness for a human being simply on the animalistic level is not going to be a complete happiness, even if temporarily one is… already feels happy or feels somewhat feels some pleasures, but then that pleasure you can get in the animal kingdom, so what’s going to happen is, yes they regress back into the reincarnation, back into the animal kingdom.

So by somehow or another, awakening them to their spiritual identity, to their spiritual future, they... the… these people in this world they are given the, the best opportunity to come up to so much difficulty to the human species, it’s meant that from here we should go back to Godhead. We should go back to Kṛṣṇa. This is what every prophet, son of God, holy man, guru, ācārya, incarnation throughout the ages has said, that we should return to the kingdom of God, we should become God conscious, we should become purified, we should… you see. But they had to deal with different people in different situations, in different countries. So their specific advises to their followers may have on the fine points diverged, but the goal of being God conscious or going back to God on the ultimate issue. Somewhere in all these religious books, that the human being should become purified and return back to the kingdom of God, that is mentioned somewhere there. It’s, it’s the goal.

But unfortunately people, they miss the opportunity. So the system of Vedic civilization was geared so that… the whole system of Vedic culture is geared so that the person can ultimately become purified from animalistic, materialistic, life and become elevated to the spiritual platform, can actually go forward and not go backward, it’s the Tamaso mā jyotir gamayā, leave the ignorance, leave the darkness, and go into the light, go towards the Absolute Truth. Athātho brahma-jijñāsā, inquire today, now, at this moment about the Absolute Truth.

So, Nanda Mahārāja, he was concerned that, “Here is my son, He should get every opportunity to become purified, to, to progress towards spiritual realization.” This was his concern, this was the basis of Vedic culture.

In fact, Śrīla Prabhupāda, sometimes he told us some Vedic, some stories, some humorous stories, Gopal Bhara stories, about a court gesture, the barber of the king used to be also the the court jester sometimes, or so… it’s just like that actually, court jester in the ordinary sense we think in the medieval times, but he was almost like a member of the cabinet in a certain way, and he was like an advisor, he was very sharp, but there was one person that the king could spoof on. And so Prabhupāda told the sum of the interchanges between him and a Vedic King. And even those humorous stories were filled with Vedic culture. The culture of spiritual purification, of uh… of following basic system of advancing towards God realization, whether on the, on the humor, or in the drama, or in the art, or in any, any facet of life was, was always visible.

All the festivals were centered, all the entertainment were centered about increasing the people’s spiritual awareness. Their love and faith in God, and in a, in a very attractive, in a very natural way. So of course today it’s taboo to uh… to talk about religion or to to do things which appear to be quote on the religious. So, we are trying to present Kṛṣṇa consciousness, as a culture, in many places.

In eastern Europe we have to tell that we are singing Indian folk songs. Well it’s all right because in India all the folk songs are spiritual, so in most of them, at least 50, but now there may there is a few new. But, in this way we are able to, in many countries where religion is taboo, but we are able to preach on the basis of culture. Similarly, here in the West even though religion is not taboo, but the people shy away from it.

So because Kṛṣṇa consciousness is a culture, but the whole culture is to purify, to uplift, to awaken one’s spiritual dormant consciousness. So, in this way the culture itself is purifying.

So, we should understand that how deep is this whole Vedic culture. That how it’s actually meant to take one from death, take one from suffering, take one from animalistic life, and bring one up to the perfectional stage. It’s very practical. Perfectional stage means that one should be always happy happy.

vāsudeve bhagavati bhakti-yogaḥ prayojitaḥ
janayaty āśu vairāgyaṁ jñānaṁ ca yad ahaitukam
(ŚB 1.2.7)

That one should be filled with knowledge, be…be…be detached from the ah...from the gross uh attachments of the material world,from the suffering, and the and the enjoyment which tosses one from here to there in the material world. One should be in a very firm position as a human being. Not just like the dog, if you throw something, the dog runs. Wherever you throw something it runs, it doesn’t have that type of control. It’s very frivolous, very light. Practically speaking, people in the modern age, many of them just like dancing dogs in the hands of sense gratification. They just go wherever they are sent. Even they amass millions, they don’t know how to use it constructively. They think that now the purpose is to somehow, simply live very comfortably and enjoy, you see.

Where here Nanda Mahārāja is very wealthy, if he wanted to do for some big… he would have spent a lot on the spiritual purification of Kṛṣṇa. He would have had a big festival, in fact just after Kṛṣṇa’s birth, this famous festival is called Nanda Mahotsava where he distributed so many cows and charity to brāhmaṇas and to would, gave feasts for all the people, had a big festival of chanting the holy names and brāhmaṇas chanting mantras and and just celebrating the birth of Kṛṣṇa, the appearance of Kṛṣṇa.

So that’s the day after Kṛṣṇa’s appearance which is called Janmāṣṭamī, Nanda Mahotsava, that is the day that Śrīla Prabhupāda appeared in this world, so we also observe Nanda Mahotsava as the Vyāsa-pūjā. In Māyāpur they offered over a thousand preparations for Lord Kṛṣṇa and Prabhupāda’s feast recently.

So the… the festival is there, still comfortable living is there but simply the… that’s not the goal. It’s not that one has to be uncomfortable or one has to starve, or has to beat oneself, and try to hate mate… But the whole thing is naturally, if we, if we have festivals, if we have our consciousness drawn to Kṛṣṇa, that is what’s purifying, that is uh what leads us in a very natural way to perfection. Not that just by some type of gross abstinence, but by a sensible regulation, by a sensible regulation of the material senses, and by very positive engagement in spiritual activities, and with such nice activities.

But so here, Nanda Mahārāja, he couldn’t do a big festival. So he said, “At least do the purificatory rights, somehow or another, even in secret, just… because these are important. I want my son to get the best opportunity.” He is thinking that Kṛṣṇa is an ordinary boy, He needs to be purified.

Actually Kṛṣṇa of course is the supreme personality of Godhead, and this is an intimate pastime with Kṛṣṇa. So Nanda Mahārāja, he is not aware of Kṛṣṇa’s real identity, that is seen by great realized souls, by by the great spiritual masters. But Nanda Mahārāja, he is filled with a relationship of love for Kṛṣṇa as a parent, and he is thinking, just let me do whatever is the best for my son, so he becomes a devotee of God and so on. Does not realize that Kṛṣṇa is Himself the Lord.

That’s by Kṛṣṇa’s own arrangement, that when He comes He allows His devotees to relate with Him in a very intimate loving way, and if they all the time thought that He was God, then they would be very afraid in dealing with Him, they would be very cautious, it wouldn’t be very natural, it would be awkward situation. So, He sets the scene in this way.

But example is given, it gives us an insight what is the purpose of Vedic culture, what is the purpose of Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement, it’s for purification. It’s so that we don’t simply end up as a dead soul leaving the dead body and then going into another dead body without any spiritual culture, you see.

Dead body is going to be just like on that river side, it’s just going to be, either it is buried in the ground, and it is eaten by worms, or it is burned, and it becomes ashes, or it’s eaten by dogs and vultures, and it becomes excrement. That’s what this body is headed for. What’s this body? This body is the machine of the material nature which is meant, especially the human body to be used to become purified, to purify our consciousness above the body consciousness where we can see the self and see God, where we can actually be Kṛṣṇa conscious, that is the purpose of the human body. Not just like the dogs to run around and to enjoy you know, little bit of frivolous sense gratification.

The great Govinda Das he is saying in his bhaja hu re mana song, he is saying,

ei-dhana, yauvana, putra, parijana, ithe ki āche paratīti re
kamala-dala-jala, jīvana ṭalamala, ei ache ei nai, 
īvana ṭalamala, bhaja huṁ hari-pada nīti re

That ei-dhana yauvana - this, the wealth that we are able to accumulate, ei-dhana, yauvana – our youthful life, this wealth, this youth, ei-dhana, yauvana. putra - children, parijana - relatives, friends, society, ithe ki āche paratīti re - what, what is the transcendental feature of all these things? What is the transcendental value, what is the real spiritual value or permanent, eternal value in wealth, youth, friends, family and society, love? kamala dala jala – it’s just like, it’s, it’s unstable. It’s just like a drop of water floating on a lotus leaf.

We just saw in the world’s fare, we went on a a brief tour because we want to see how they do different exhibitions so we can make similar exhibitions on Kṛṣṇa consciousness in Māyāpur. So one of the multimedia shows, just happened to show a lotus leaf on the pond, being shaken by the and it showed right on there, one drop of water spinning around on the top of the lotus leaf. I said, “There it is, kamala dala jala.” I think it was in the 3D.

Just what Govinda Das was talking about, a drop of water on a lotus leaf. A lotus leaf is like lubricated. You put a drop of water on that, it just, it just, it just moves it’s beads up into a little ball but it just moves. It has…it has no stability, at every second it’s just moving around and coming off and back on and moving around. That’s how our life is, at any moment… here in New Orleans, a man sitting in his house and an Eastern Airline jet crashes in his house, where is the stability? Sitting having your morning breakfast, before you know it, you know, no wife, no kids, you got a jet sitting in your house, right? You think life here has got a lot of stability? Right?

You are driving to work, and some drunken driver runs the stop light and you… and you get side swipe, you walk out in the street and the bus driver runs you over or a… you know, I mean life is kamala dala jala, it’s just like a drop of water on lotus, you can’t… any second anything can…you are walking somebody suddenly they have a headache, and it turns out to be a stroke or they have a little pain in the chest and it is a heart attack, where they are smoking a cigarette and they end up, they get lung cancer.

That’s the only stability, whether your life, whatever situation it is, Kṛṣṇa is the constant, He is the K factor, He is the factor who never changes. If we lead our life towards becoming spiritually conscious, that happiness that we get from the awakening of the self, from our understanding our relationship with Kṛṣṇa, it’s non-dependent upon all of these temporary things, which do not have any permanent value, which can be destroyed or taken away in a second.

Here in America, that big car… car manufacturer, Lea… Lea… I forget his name, he got arrested for a drug dealing, lost all his money, became bankrupt. So one second you are in a big society, name, fame, next you become infamous, everybody is out to get you. You lose eve… so this is… this is the way of material life.

Even in the time of Lord Caitanya, there was one relative of a devotee, but he wasn’t himself engaged in devotional service, he did pay his debt, before he knew it he was about to be uh… to be killed for a… thrown off the cliff, I think what… thrown off some kind of a… on to spears or something because he wasn’t paying his debt.

So material life in one second, everything can turn over, it has no guarantee. So Govinda Das and the great ācāryas say, “Don’t base your happiness, don’t base your life, don’t base it upon this material standard, base it upon God consciousness, upon Kṛṣṇa consciousness, base it upon purification, for that end.” And this is what the devotees are doing when they go out and do saṅkīrtana, we have a marathon, so they are purifying themselves, and they are giving an opportunity for the people who are in illusion, who are in this unfortunate jivana ṭala mala turmoil situation. They may have temporarily some steadiness, but that steadiness is like the steadiness of a drop of water on the lotus leaf, for a second it may be still and then something else.

So, the devotees are helping them. They are giving them the greatest opportunity by allowing them to engage in some kind of a purification, engaging them in some service. This is the actual purpose of life is that they should become purified, human beings transcend the human platform and achieve the Godly platform, achieve the transcendental platform.

sa vai puṁsāṁ paro dharmo
yato bhaktir adhokṣaje
ahaituky apratihatā
yayātmā suprasīdati
(ŚB 1.2.6)

They should become completely satisfied on the transcendental platform.

Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare
Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare

There any questions?

Yes?

Question: How do you become a serious preacher?

Jayapatākā Swami: A serious preacher, well a person can become a serious preacher in different ways. When one is a serious devotee, one becomes a serious, one can be a serious preacher.

If a person is very serious about carrying out the order of guru, Vaiṣṇava, Kṛṣṇa, that naturally becomes also a serious, whatever he does, including preaching. If a preacher becomes very concerned about helping the people, awaken from their animalistic consciousness and come into their actual spiritual heritage, in that case they become very serious preachers, by developing their compassion, by actually seeing philosophically how people both those who appear to be happy, and those who appear to be suffering are all in a very precarious unfortunate condition, and they need to be helped to become Kṛṣṇa conscious, to become God conscious, to get out of this entire material entanglement.

In material life, happiness is the stepping stone to misery, and misery is the stepping stone to happiness. sukha-duḥkha-dāḥ. mātrā-sparśās tu kaunteya śītoṣṇa-sukha-duḥkha-dāḥ - Happiness and sadness is always changing just like the changing of the seasons, spring to summer, summer to fall, fall to winter, winter to spring, spring to summer, like that. So, if someone is happy, it doesn’t mean anything, it just means that within no time he going to be sad, even if someone is suffering that doesn’t mean that much because after some time things will change and he will become happy. So, to simply try to help all the people who are materially unfortunate, become materially fortunate, is alright in the material platform, but in the overall spiritual sense that falls short. That… that for us we want to help everyone.

Of course, those who are suffering materially, obviously it’s hard for them to concentrate on spiritual life. So many of the Kṛṣṇa conscious services like giving out prasāda, also do have the material side effect. Like feeding their hunger. But the purpose is not to stop there, but to actually give them spiritual happiness. Even rich people, even so called successful people or happy people, their situation is also uh one that deserves some sympathy, some compassion, some mercy that they could actually become spiritually situated, because their situation is very unstable. Very soon they will also be put into material suffering if they are not already in it.

But devotee becomes very compassionate to the fallen soul, wants to see them become spiritually happy, wants to see them in their suffering, this is one way of becoming a very serious preacher. Or one in general takes up the mood of the spiritual master and Kṛṣṇa and wants to carry out their instruction but also be very serious.

Any other questions?

Yes?

Question: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: The of course I have never had I never had it explain exactly that why, but seemed to be always explain in the progression of breathing, of getting oxygen and sunlight. A plant gets more oxygen and sunlight, somehow that’s an advantage in this planet. But exactly I couldn’t. Just like the mammal fish, that whales and the porpoises are definitely much more intelligent than the other fish. In fact, they found that the porpoises are… they have a language, they communicate, they save many sailors in the sea, but of course I have not had that authoritatively explained in the Vedas or really don’t have the confirmed answer.

But, I don’t have the… couldn’t quote you the verse, so better not say anything. Within the aquatics there are all these little amoebas, bugs, and things. And their state of consciousness is really down. So, but within certain categories you probably find different… just like you find different levels also.

Yes.

Comment: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: Derived your own?

Reply: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: Hope they don’t take birth as dolphins.

Comment: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: It’s very hard for dolphin to engage in self-realization. (laughter)

Comment: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: Uh dolphins may of course chant the holy names of the God, but they don’t have much facility to do any of the other very spiritual practices, maybe they use meditation but uh they have to eat live fish and, basically, they spend their time swimming around all the time.

Jayapatākā Swami: I don’t know if it’s appropriate for the Vyāsāsana.

Question: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: One devotee in 1966, had a job driving mink coats from the godown to the store, from the warehouse to the store, Prabhupāda told him to give up the job, because we don’t want to be engaged in anything to do with slaughtering or killing of animals, including even transporting. He is just a truck driver. It is not good because, anything until the final product sold and used by the end user, everything from the trapping, killing, all the way up is implicated.

When I joined the movement and then went to Montreal, we did book distribution, we got a notice from our land lord, we have to pay the rent or get out or something. So Prabhupāda was there, he is the… he didn’t have a green card that time, and his visa had expired, so he was waiting. The temples in America were applying for the green card so he could come and visit them. So I got a job in the uh A & W coffee shop, even though my previous family was rich or whatever, but just I needed some kind of a job, somehow I got a job there. And they… they told Prabhupāda that, “Uh, he has to uh clean up.” I was just a cleanup boy. I took the job for a month or something, just to pull the temple through. And uh some bhakta and uh he is a cleanup boy and he cleans up you know, the used plates after they finish which, you know contains uh you know, meat and things, hamburgers or whatever. So… Prabhupāda said, “Well, that’s after they have already eaten. So the person who kills, who sells, who raises, the cows sells to the slaughter house, transports it, kills it, transports the meat, cooks the meat and then finally the person eats it. So that’s already after the act, there is no karma in that. A blind uncle is better than none.” That’s what he said that, better they have a blind uncle than no uncle. So that time we needed the money, so better they have a bad job than no job. And that wasn’t… that was after the karma fact. So now the devotees are very fortunate, they don’t have to work in such hellish conditions.

In most cases they can do saṅkīrtana, and they can work in a vegetarian restaurant, and uh serve the people. We had to do so many things just to uh subsist then, but as far as the karma is concerned uh we don’t deal on anything with leather especially because that’s encouraging this whole slaughtering process.

In India when a cow naturally dies, you… just like our mṛdaṅgas are only made from cows who die naturally. All slaughter houses, when they kill the cow, they put salt on the hide to preserve it, but mṛdaṅgas cannot be made from a cow skin that has salt in it. So, when the cows die of old age, then you call it, “Tan it. Skin it.” And he takes off the skin and he dries it in the sun, and that can be used for shoes or for uh… they use… nowadays they use it for shoes but in the Vedic times, I don’t know they use it for shoes or not, they might, but uh they used it for mṛdaṅgas and the tablas and things like that. The straps and… you know, they all of fiberglass here, but in the original clay mṛdaṅgas, just put leather straps, and those of them cows die naturally.

So Prabhupāda said, “If you want to eat cow’s meat, let the cow die, and then eat it.”

They said, “Well then it’s tough. It’s not a very… it’s not a very good point.”

Question: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: Well it will be easy to get some karmas. But if one is trying to avoid, to basically avoid karma, you are responsible for what you do, the people who live with you, what they do they are responsible. The only thing is by association you may be led into doing those things, and that type of association would be very conducive for developing one’s spiritual consciousness. Some people are able to take a lot of association with devotees.

I know some women who are married, and their husbands are… they say, “Well, you can practice but I am not interested.” and they eat meat. The woman, their wives they chant, they follow everything in their house, and they cook vegetarian food for their husband, but when he goes out, he may eat anything. So, they are able to maintain. It’s difficult, but they take association of devotees, they have lot of children, they live in a society where there is no other alternative for them. They are somehow or other able to maintain. It’s very difficult but we have seen some people are able to do that. Normally in the, in the Western northern European countries nobody would have that much patience with their fallen husbands. But… and society doesn’t demand it, but in other places, no. It’s just more difficult for a woman to… to disentangle one… herself in that situation.

Yes?

Question: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: Well, it’s… it’s recommended to use uh with vinyl or some other kind of leather substitute. Maybe that one piece and any you just put out in the corner… corner shoe man on the corner and maybe put that in strap one for 25 paisa, a quarter of a cent. But I don’t know in America what you do. We should for preaching of course you know a person can do, can use these things if they have to for preaching but if there is an alternative, then better to use the substitute.

While you are preaching somebody may say, “Look at, you’re wearing leather.” But we don’t have to be fanatic. Like kind of winter, you are working in the farm or something, which is in Canada or something, sometimes you have to wear boots. We tell utility is the principle. If you have choice then choose the more non-violent, but if there is not a choice or if it’s uh then do what, do what will you know, that way we can’t walk barefoot, if there is no better choice, then do what you have to. Temple president and the purchaser, they will be responsible for giving you those anyway.

Question: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: What did he think they were?

Question: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: You thought they were apples?

Question: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: Frozen food, that’s why it’s best not to buy frozen vegetables, buy fresh vegetables. Cut them up.

So, he said you should avoid. You should avoid eating those things. If I accidentally eat them, it doesn’t mean that then you should give up your spiritual life or something. You should… Whatever the bad effect of that on your body you have to tolerate, and just pray to Kṛṣṇa that your spiritual progress won’t be impeded. It was an accident. Try to avoid it.

Question: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: Well we have to be very careful because some of the uh… some of the people with… with him are very envious against the Kṛṣṇa conscious movement. They want to discourage people and they’re very diplomatic in presenting it. But the actual ideas, they have somewhat different philosophy, which uh some of them are offensive. So, we generally try to just avoid their association. Because you don’t want to be… at least on the street, you don’t have to run away holding your ears or something. But of course, you can do that if they something offensive, but just avoid the association. Maybe later on, things will improve, but there is some uh people there who uh are uh inimical and so that we don’t… because just to avoid hearing any offenses or better to avoid. They can’t do anything to help us, but they can do something to harm us at the present time. Uh, Bhaktilatika… Tim. Yeah, Tim. We’ll alternate.

Bhakta Tim: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: Well you should, you should analyze every feeling and thought, with feelings and thoughts, and the philosophy of the scriptures. If you are feeling some thoughts are the same as the spiritual master’s express desires, the explanations of the Vedas, you should analyze that. But as they newer devotee, you should, you should give deference to the older devotees, at least socially in your behavior and uh if you don’t agree with something that they are doing or seeing, then later on you could, they can inquire from the spiritual master or some very senior devotee, that who is actually correct.

Because uh and it may be that sometimes you you are correct, but in minor things it’s not worth a disagreement. Just like maybe the Corporal sometimes is correct and the Sergeant, isn’t but the corporal follows the Sergeant, because that’s the way it is. Later on, he is going to be a Sergeant… in a way, a Sergeant Major, or some Lieutenant, or whatever, he’ll move up, but the Sergeant who makes mistakes, he is not going to go anywhere.

So, we are not attached but uh we have a follow a certain, whatever the service is, first something like a chain of command or something, that we should follow that just so that we avoid wasting. We waste more time over small point. Some of them say, “It is better to sweep the floor with your right hand.” and you may be a leftie, so actually it’s easier in left hand and it doesn’t matter what hand you sweep the floor with, but you know… just you can have a whole argument, but then you know just whatever example you want to give, it’s better to analyze everything by the scriptures, by the words of the spiritual master. If you don’t know, well then, your own opinion shouldn’t be given too much credence unless it is confirmed. If you have an idea you should try it get it confirmed, this is the good idea, is this correct, is my understanding proper, according to the Vedas and the spiritual master?”

Bhaktilatika… Latikabhakti?

Latikabhakti Dasi: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: Why only the Six Gosvāmīs? Lord Caitanya, the Six Gosvāmīs, Pañca-tattva, spiritual master, Kṛṣṇa and the saṅkīrtana are non-different. Wherever there is Caitanya Mahāprabhu all of His associates are there.

Question: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: How?

Reply: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: Sure.

Comment: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: So any new… It’s late. The rest have to go out on saṅkīrtana. Do you have any more new people haven’t asked any question that want a question answered? Do you have a question?

Question: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: Well, purificatory, purification is essential. The the purificatory rights given in the Vedas are prescribed but in Kali-yuga, because, in this present age we are in, because people haven’t have the opportunity of all those purificatory rights, they’re aimed but they are not the end in themselves. It is recommended that one should chant the names of Kṛṣṇa, the names of God, and this the ultimate purificatory right or the ultimate purification is to constantly chant the mantras or the names of the Lord. So there are unlimited names of God, nāmnām akāri bahudhā nija-sarva-śaktis. So one may chant the name Kṛṣṇa, or Govinda, or Rāma, Hare Kṛṣṇa, or one may chant some other bonafide name of God, but especially chanting the holy names, this is recommended in this age.

So we have been handed down this Hare Kṛṣṇa chant as being a very effective and very powerful combination of the names of the Lord, which are especially recommended for this age. But we don’t say that uh these are the only names of God somebody can chant. If they have other names, they can do that. That will be more effective than any other purification in this particular age, for spiritual progress.

But if someone doesn’t have another name or if one is open minded and can see that well, that these names are effective, so why not chant them? Then we invite everyone to take this opportunity and chant Hare Kṛṣṇa few times. Kṛṣṇa is just a name for God in Sanskrit, but these names are very time-proved to be successful. There are other names which uh are also names of God but which may address different mood or aspect of uh the Lord or a different… it’ll be a different, so there are different kind of vibration, which may not be as effective for purification. Still it will be more effective than uh another process in this particular day. The vibration is the way of purification, vibrating these sacred or transcendental names.

Do you chant Hare Kṛṣṇa? Have you tried it? Why don’t you try it? See if you can get any effect, any benefit. Mantra means to deliver the mind, to uplift the consciousness. One doesn’t have to be a… The temple is the place where it is very convenient to chant, it’s… it’s set aside for that purpose, we can hear, and we can chant, and we can read, but it’s not limited to the temples. We can chant in the park, we can chant on the bus, we can chant while we are walking, we can chant… there is so many spare moments, instead of… instead of putting our ear into a ghetto blaster… and it’s not going to purify us, its adding more fuel to the fire (laughter) of our anxieties, and dissatisfactions. That in this way it is very easy to purify the consciousness. And person comes to that transcendental platform very easily.

So, one doesn’t have to be tied into the so-called organized aspect of it. Even in a very freeway one can chant anywhere, anytime, this is the wonder and the benediction or the special gift of Lord Caitanya’s movement, that He wanted that people will be able to practice their own homes. But it is a, it is a, it is beneficial, it’s conducive for someone who wants to advance in the spiritual life to the get the association of likeminded spiritual people. That provides a type of an atmosphere which is uh conducive for meditation and for spiritual practices. Once a person knows the basic uh he is little bit habituated or has learned the processes of meditation, well they can perform anywhere, anytime.

Is that alright?

Devotee: Yeah. (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: Right. The devotees, if they are waiting in a line in customs… Sometimes it’s big lines in international flights, you stuck there for 45 minutes, so they chant, what are you going to do? So, there is no, there is no uh time which is allowed to just go wasted. If they have any time or, it can always be used for chanting, and that keeps the consciousness in a very purified, very awakened state, and in this way, everybody has so many spare moment, and so they try to fill it up with something and other but, by chanting one is actually making a step back in making steps forward in spiritual progress, going towards the goal of life which is to become completely awakened, completely aware.