19850326 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.29.18

The following is a class given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on March 26, 1985 in Bangalore, India. The class begins with a reading from the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, 3rd Canto, Chapter 29, text 18.

ādhyātmikānuśravaṇān
nāma-saṅkīrtanāc ca me
ārjavenārya-saṅgena
nirahaṅkriyayā tathā
(ŚB 3.29.18)

Translation: A devotee should always try to hear about spiritual matters and should always utilize his time in chanting the holy name of the Lord. His behavior should always be straightforward and simple, and although he is not envious but friendly to everyone, he should avoid the company of persons who are not spiritually advanced.

*Translation with repetition*

Purport: In order to advance in spiritual understanding, one has to hear from authentic sources about spiritual knowledge. One can understand the reality of spiritual life by following strict regulative principles and by controlling the senses. To have control it is necessary that one be nonviolent and truthful, refrain from stealing, abstain from sex life and possess only that which is absolutely necessary for keeping the body and soul together. One should not eat more than necessary, he should not collect more paraphernalia than necessary, he should not talk unnecessarily with common men, and he should not follow the rules and regulations without purpose. He should follow the rules and regulations so that he may actually make advancement.

There are eighteen qualifications mentioned in Bhagavad-gītā, among which is simplicity. One should be without pride, one should not demand unnecessary respect from others, and one should be nonviolent (amānitvam adambhitvam ahiṁsā). One should be very tolerant and simple, one should accept the spiritual master, and one should control the senses. These are mentioned here and in Bhagavad-gītā as well. One should hear from authentic sources how to advance in spiritual life; such instructions should be taken from the ācārya and should be assimilated.

It is especially mentioned here, nāma-saṅkīrtanāc ca: one should chant the holy names of the Lord — Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare — either individually or with others. Lord Caitanya has given special stress to chanting of these holy names of the Lord as the basic principle of spiritual advancement. Another word used here is ārjavena, meaning “without diplomacy.” A devotee should not make plans out of self-interest. Of course, preachers sometimes have to make some plan to execute the mission of the Lord under proper guidance, but regarding personal self-interest, a devotee should always be without diplomacy, and he should avoid the company of persons who are not advancing in spiritual life. Another word is ārya. Āryans are persons who are advancing in knowledge of Kṛṣṇa consciousness as well as in material prosperity. The difference between the Āryan and non-Āryan, the sura and asura, is in their standards of spiritual advancement. Association with persons who are not spiritually advanced is forbidden. ? Lord Caitanya advised, asat-saṅga-tyāga: one should avoid persons who are attached to the temporary. Asat is one who is too materially attached — who is not a devotee of the Lord or who is too attached to women or enjoyable material things. Such a person, according to Vaiṣṇava philosophy, is a persona non grata.

A devotee should not be proud of his acquisitions. The symptoms of a devotee are meekness and humility. Although spiritually very advanced, he will always remain meek and humble, as Kavirāja Gosvāmī and all the other Vaiṣṇavas have taught us by personal example. Caitanya Mahāprabhu taught that one should be humbler than the grass on the street and more tolerant than the tree. One should not be proud or falsely puffed up. In this way one will surely advance in spiritual life.

Thus end the Bhaktivedanta translation and purport to Canto 3, Chapter 29, Text 19 in the chapter subtitled, “Explanation of devotional service.”

Jayapatākā Swami: (Reads Translation again)

A devotee should always try to hear about spiritual matters and should always utilize his time in chanting the holy name of the Lord. His behavior should always be straightforward and simple, and although he is not envious but friendly to everyone, he should avoid the company of persons who are not spiritually advanced.

Jayapatākā Swami: Well, this is a very nice verse which tells the devotees what the priorities are for advancing in spiritual life. This type of very useful, good, instructions are found throughout the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and the Bhagavad-Gītā. They are given for being a practical guideline on how we should act. We should try to follow these guidelines given by the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. Devotee is not someone who merely has a sentiment that he is a devotee but doesn’t try to follow the scriptures. One should actually try to implement these guidelines given by the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

Here it is advised that, we should always try to hear about spiritual matters. In the previous verse, it is said that, the symptoms of pure devotional service is when we spontaneously find that our consciousness is fixed as soon as there is a glorification of Kṛṣṇa and His devotees; when our mind doesn’t wander away, but it remains fixed hearing those transcendental vibrations. Now that is a perfectional stage symptom. Now here it tells us, that even if we are not in that stage, where our consciousness is spontaneously attracted to hearing about Kṛṣṇa, still we should always try to hear about spiritual matters.

It may be that spontaneously when one hears the news broadcast or sees a newspaper, one is attracted, and one would like to read for one hour or half hour all of the flickering news, and when it’s time for the Bhagavad-Gītā, or the Bhāgavatam class, or when it is time to sit and read the scriptures you find that your mind is wandering away to different directions. May be found that such reverse symptoms are there. Nonetheless then one should make a conscious effort to try to hear spiritual matters.

Just as in the Vedas it says, that we should do ‘śubhasya śīghram’. We should do the auspicious thing today, and those things which are aśubha, inauspicious, we should do that tomorrow, we should do that later. So, we should always prefer to take up our spiritual duties, and then after that if we have to do any other type of duty, then we do that subsequently. So know here that again and again, the scriptures tell us how we should try to do.

Sometimes we hear people say... you ask them, “Well, why don’t you come to the temple?”

“If the Lord... takes me then I will go.”

“Why don’t you come to class?”

“Well if I get dragged to class then I will go.”

No, its not... We should try. By the law of karma, you will be dragged to death. By the law of karma, you will be dragged here and there, to fulfil your various material desires. That will happen automatically. But by the law of karma no one is dragged to Kṛṣṇa. One has to desire to go to Kṛṣṇa. You have to consciously will to engage in spiritual life, and then you can counteract karma. Otherwise if you are waiting for the flow to take you, you will probably find it will not take you to Kṛṣṇa, it will take you to where your previous births have dictated that you should be taken. The only exception in this case is sometimes by the prayers, desires, good wishes of a devotee of Kṛṣṇa, one is brought to Kṛṣṇa, even though one should not have that opportunity according to one’s karma.

Similarly, by rendering out some devotional service in the past, one may again and again be given some opportunity to render devotional service. We should take it up. We should try for it. We shouldn’t, when the opportunity comes knocking at our doors, we shouldn’t take some kind of abstract impersonal viewpoint. We should personally take up, try at being Kṛṣṇa conscious. What do we have to lose? Nothing to lose, with so much to gain.

Kṛṣṇa tells Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Gītā, “Now you decide. Now it is your decision. You can fight or you can leave.” Throughout the Vedas we find that there is a choice. For us it may be that normally, those who are godly people they make the godly choice, and those who are ungodly people make the ungodly choice, the demoniac choice. That maybe the normal result that you find. Nonetheless the choice is there. Somehow or another we should try to make the right choice. We should try for it. Even if we find that our impulse is to make the wrong choice, to not choose to hear spiritual matters, but rather to hear materialistic matters, we should to try hear spiritual matters. Again and again, we should try for it. That is to our own good interest.

Nāma-saṅkīrtanāc ca me, and we should hear Kṛṣṇa’s holy name, chant Kṛṣṇa’s holy name. Actually in the Vedas, in devotional service there are various angas or principle practices that we are recommended to do. There are so many subsidiary advices that which are also given. So, of the 64 items, there are some items which are very important. In out of all of those items, the item which is most important, if you have to do one item out of all 64, then you should do this nāma-saṅkīrtana. You should chant in the congregational chanting of the holy names of Kṛṣṇa. Because that can be done whether a person is pure or impure, clean or unclean, no matter what circumstance, what situation he is in, he can engage in this nāma-saṅkīrtana. Whether a suci, or asuci, whatever. There is no such restriction. There may be some restriction to worship the deity under certain circumstances, but there is no such restriction for chanting the holy name.

There is a story that they tell in Jagannath Puri, at the Gaura Gambhīra Maṭha, the followers of ah... Gopal Guru. That one time Caitanya Mahāprabhu ah Caitanya Mahāprabhu was in His lila, who was acting like an ordinary person, and so temporarily He went into the bathroom, and one small boy brought water to Him whose name was Gopal, and He called it to Lord Caitanya that, ‘Why You are not chanting the name of Kṛṣṇa?’, then Lord Caitanya said, “Well, this is a unclean place.” Little Gopal said, “But You never know when You are going to die, so You should chant every time, every place”. So then Lord Caitanya said, “Since you are instructing Me, you are no longer Gopal, now you are Guru, Gopal Guru.” Of course, it’s not the position of anyone to instruct Lord Caitanya. Little boy, He accepted his instructions, which was meant in a good way. So yes, this is correct. So he became known as Gopal Guru, and he wrote a book on chanting the holy name. Later he became an active preacher of Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s movement. So, there is no hard and fast rule. Lord Caitanya has told us,

nāmnām akāri bahudhā nija-sarva-śaktis
tatrārpitā niyamitaḥ smaraṇe na kālaḥ
(Śikṣāṣṭakam Verse 2)

So we should take up the chanting as our prime responsibility. You find that these instructions are given many times in the scriptures in many different ways.

ārjavenārya-saṅgena, ārjavenā- that quality of the Vedic culture, Arya culture, is ah... be very Kṛṣṇa conscious, very God, Godly. So ārjavenā means to be straightforward, that means to be non-diplomatic. Just like we find in the Mahābhārata that Duryodhana, in fact in the Bhagavad-Gītā, Duryodhana is chastising Droṇācārya, in the first chapter, that you are so liberal that you taught our enemies, this Pāṇdu’s, specially Arjuna, the whole military science. So he was asking in such a way to find out whether in the battlefield he would also be so liberal or whether he would fight fully. Droṇācārya was so liberal that naturally he taught Arjuna, all the military science, even though he may have had the vision that in the future this may be used against himself or Droṇācārya, Droṇa ah... Duryodhana. That means that he had no diplomacy, he was very straightforward, he just did his duty.

Similarly, the brahminical nature is that one should do whatever is correct, it is Kṛṣṇa conscious one should do it. Even if one sees that by doing that materially I may suffer, one should avoid being diplomat, diplomatic. For the interest of Kṛṣṇa sometimes, one under guidance can make some kind of plan, which may appear to be diplomatic. Because sometimes for instance, just like our nītī-śāstra pandit, Cāṇakya said, “When you are dealing with a crooked person, you may have to be crooked. If you are dealing with a clever person, you have to be clever. If you are dealing with a straightforward person, you have to be more straightforward.”

Sometimes people come to cheat Kṛṣṇa. So that time if we be very straightforward, then Kṛṣṇa may suffer. Just like in... in ISKCON, in the Bombay property, the person sold us the property with the idea of getting the advance money from ISKCON, and then driving us off. In fact they hired the police to come and act like goondas, and the police came and cut down the temple with blowtorches, even without a proper court order. So therefore Prabhupāda, he had to, in a very cool head think what to do. So may be sometimes in such circumstances for Kṛṣṇa one will do something which may appear to be not straightforward. Just as Kṛṣṇa told Arjuna in the battlefield to...told Yudhiṣṭhira to shout out that Aśwatthāmā in loud voice and then small voice, the elephant. Aśwatthāmā iti hatva, iti hāthī- Ashwathama the elephant is dead. It was a type of diplomatic behavior, but for Kṛṣṇa’s interest one has to do these things sometimes. That should not be done frivolously, or without cause. But it shouldn’t be done for one’s own interest, or one’s own... material purpose, because then one’s consciousness gets trained up in being a very devious kind of person. And thus it is hard to be straightforward even with the spiritual superiors. So one should be ārjavena, should be... be very straightforward in one’s dealings.

This word ārya is very important. Of course, whether ārya or ḍraviḍian, implications are the same. In the sense, ārya means, that which is connected with spiritual culture. Rādhārāṇī’s one name is ārya, and therefore She is worshipped as a personification of all the good qualities of ārya culture. So we should try for the ārya-sanga, that means spiritual association. This is very important. Sometimes we find that when a devotee associates too much with non-devotees, including one’s own materialistic mind, then one can fall down.

You might be surprised that I include mind as a non-devotee. But in the beginning of our devotional service, before the mind is purified, the mind may have so many materialistic thoughts, that if we allow the mind to just go on and think, we just allow ourselves to sit and think, that itself could be bad association. Therefore, even our thoughts are organized, that when we think something, we should analyze it, according to the vision of the scriptures, according to the vision of the spiritual master. Not that we go on and on thinking in our own way without analyzing whether those thoughts are in fact ah... fanta... fantasies or are they materialistic thoughts or are they spiritual thoughts. Therefore, people who are prone to sit and think, in a very unregulated way, they are also seems trying to become bewildered. When you find a person very thoughtful, and very unhappy, that means that their thought is probably not being directed along spiritual matters.

Because in Bhagavad-Gītā it describes su-sukhaṁ kartum avyayam - this process makes one very happy. So if one is thinking about spiritual matter, then one feels happiness. So, when we are associating with devotees, naturally our thoughts are directed along spiritual matters. When we are associating with non-devotees in a very intimate way, then our mind is more easily directed along materialistic thoughts.

So Caitanya Mahāprabhu and Lord Nityānanda, they always wanted to associate with devotees. One time they were walking toward the house of Advaita Goswami, in Śāntipura, which is about fifty Kilometers or forty kilometers well maybe twenty-five kilometers or less, from ah... Navadvīpa Dhām, Māyāpur. So, on the way, there was a sannyāsi who greeted them, and invited, “Please, you are great devotees, you please come to my house.” So, they thought, “Here is a sannyāsi, we should go to his house, he is a devotee or something.” So, They went, and he treated Them very nice. Offered Them a seat, respected Them, and he told Them so many things about praising Kṛṣṇa, praising devotional service. So then he requested that, “You please take some fruits prasad.” So, then he gave Them a plate, and gave Them some fruit prasadam. Then as They were taking some fruit prasāda, then he brought out, I believe he brought out was some wine. Said, “You take some wine.”

Lord Caitanya and Nityānanda looked at each other, and They said, “Wine! You take wine?!” And he said, “Yes, why not? It’s good for one.” Gave some stupid answer. They jumped out, Nitāi-Gaura ran from that place and jumped with Their whole clothes on, right into the Ganges. “We took food in a house of someone who was a false sādhu, who is taking, breaking regulative principles.” They were so disgusted with Themselves that They have been fooled in this way. Of course, They can never be fooled, but I think even before They took anything actually, They sat down to take and it was revealed. So They were saved by Their own arrangement. Still that They sat down, They felt very bad. Somehow or another that false sādhu because of some great good fortune, in spite of breaking principles, because of some unknown reason, he was able to get this association of Lord Caitanya. After that he realized his mistake, seeing how strongly Lord Caitanya, Nityānanda reacted and he corrected himself. But They wouldn’t go there immediately seeing his fallen nature.

So Lord Caitanya-Nityānanda They respected the Vaiṣṇavas, but They showed by Their own example, that They didn’t want to associate with someone who was even a devotee, if he wasn’t following the principles properly. They avoided that. They wouldn’t take food certainly at their house. Therefore we also, Lord Caitanya advised us that, we shouldn’t take any food cooked by non-devotees.

Viṣayī anna khāile viṣākta hoilo mana - If you eat the food, specially the grains cooked by non-devotees, by materialistic people, Mahāprabhu says that this can contaminate your consciousness. In fact it is explained before in some occasions, that the reason was asked that, “How was is that in the Kuru’s rāja-sabhā, in the presence of great souls like Bhīṣma, Droṇācārya, how was it that Draupadī could be attempted to be made disgrace her in public?”

So the explanation is given that, because Bhīṣma, Droṇācārya had eaten the food given by Duryodhana, materialist, their mind had become polluted. Even if a great mahājana, if he eats the food by materialistic people, this can affect their consciousness, what to speak of ordinary persons? So, we avoid taking any donation of food stuff cooked by materialistic people.

Even the Kurus, were certainly vegetarians, or following Vedic principles to a large degree being emperors, and there is no mention that they took that Bhīṣma or Droṇācārya although they are kṣatriyas, of course they have got some facilities sometimes to take meat, but in any case certainly whatever they did was according to Vedic culture. So even then, it’s not that the food was necessarily exceptionally sinful, more than being like totally non-Vedic, but it wasn’t prasāda, that’s for sure. It wasn’t offered to Kṛṣṇa. It was a food cooked by materialists. Duryodhana was certainly a materialist, there is no doubt about that. And that materialistic food accepted in charity by Droṇācārya and Bhisma, had such a contaminating effect that they lost their own balance in terms of proprietary. They lost the strength to be able to react appropriately to when the chastity of one of the most, or you could say, the most chaste woman, mother Draupadī.

So be very careful about what we eat. Even the materialist says, “You are what you eat” But they don’t know that this has spiritual significance as well. So, we should avoid this type of intimate association. That means not in some envious kind of way, not that some kind of idea is presented here that we should feel envious or something like, “Oh! These people are untouchables. We cannot go with them, we are very advanced, nothing like that.” Devotee is not feeling envious. Devotee also go to those people to preach to them, to try to elevate them. But won’t just intimately associate, and talk useless talk, and eat their food and associate as an equal. Will keep careful distance, because by too intimate hobnobbing they can pollute one’s consciousness, and one could gradually take on an enjoying attitude just by that type of association.

Prahlāda Mahārāja said in the Bhāgavatam that association is so powerful, acts like a mirror. Whomever one associates with, they start to take on those qualities. So you can imagine like associating very intimately with materialistic people, this can affect one’s outlook. So therefore, we regularly associate with the mahā-bhāgavatas, every morning hearing the Bhāgavatam, hearing about the great devotees, cleansing our consciousness, so that when even we go out and preach to people, even that association may have some rub-off effect. So we want to, repeatedly purify the consciousness by bhāgavata nitya sevayā, by associating with the pure devotees, and by hearing about the pure devotees, serving the pure devotees, so on.

So nirahaṅkriyayā - well, the devotee doesn’t despise fallen people. It’s not that we hate fallen people. We hate the disease. We are afraid or cautious about the disease that they possess. As doctors we go, and we try to cure them. But if you see expert doctor when he is working in a kind of plague situation, you find that when they investigate a patient, afterwards they are very careful to wash their hands, to follow the hygienic principles, because they may also get infected. Not that because you are a doctor, you are immune from being infected. One shouldn’t be falsely proud, one should be nirahaṅkriyayā. One shouldn’t be falsely proud thinking that I am a devotee, I can never become affected by māyā. We should have a healthy respect for this disease known as māyā. And although we are trying to cure people of that disease, we should always be careful ourselves to try to avoid contracting it. We should never think ourselves to be totally immune. We should know our own relative spiritual strength, and accordingly we should act in a very careful conscientious manner. So these are the basic principles. We find that the great devotees like Kṛṣṇadas Kavirāja Goswami and others, they are always very humble. They follow the principle,

tṛṇād api su-nīcena
taror iva sahiṣṇunā
amāninā māna-dena
kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ
(Cc. Antya 6.239)

In fact, Lord Caitanya said one should wear that prayer around his neck, where it is right over your heart, practice it every day. Then we can chant,

hare kṛṣṇa hare kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa kṛṣṇa hare hare
hare rāma hare rāma rāma rāma hare hare

Devotees start to look a little more like Kṛṣṇa also. Generally, their faces become a little rounder. Materialists, you find the meat eaters, although they always say that, you have to eat meat to be healthy, usually they have sulking cheeks, like a tiger or wolf or like a fish. So although they always say about meat for protein and everything, usually you find that their features are very chunky, kind of shallow. But those who are eating a lot of Kṛṣṇa prasāda, ghee, we generally find them kind of round face, bright features.

Even in the West, I read recently that Thoreau I believe, no it was, it was one famous writer who became vegetarian. Even by eating vegetarian food one is ah takes on the qualities of mode of goodness, then if you eat prasāda, then yes gradually your whole body becomes spiritualized. So that’s why the devotees, we like, we touch the bodies of the devotees, considering them to be purified. We don’t, interested in touching the bodies of non-devotees or being touched by non-devotees. Doesn’t mean to say that its untouchability and all that in that sense, it’s just that they are not considered ah clean in many cases, so they are not considered, it’s not ah having that spiritual vibrations, there is no advantage in touching them. If anything, there might be some disadvantage. So, we don’t unnecessarily want to have that type of intimate contact. But it’s mentioned, one of the things that for the sense of touch, it can be purified by touching a devotee. That means that by touching a devotee your sense of touch can be purified. Therefore, the devotee’s body must be spiritualized, that’s not only by taking prasāda, but by being utilized in Kṛṣṇa’s service.

So, I was saying that ah that the vegetarian writer, he even at his old age, he did not look so old, he looked a bit young. So, somebody asked him, “How is it that you look so young?” So he said, “It’s not that I look young, I look my real age, but because all you people are eating dead bodies, you all grow old faster. Actually, everyone would look younger if they eat the proper diet.” So actually, you find in India, generally speaking, lot of the people, especially those who are vegetarian, they don’t look that old as if you see a person in the West, at the age of 50, they look like they are totally, it’s frightening the way they look.

When I leave India, and go first few days in the West, there is a big shock, the old people their features are very horrible looking. Therefore, they take all this plastic surgery and everything. Because of all the sinful diet, they look very old very fast. But generally, you find that in India, the people they don’t start looking old until they are very old, because ah of more natural diet, lifestyle, regulations. And devotees, they don’t look old at all. They always have a type of youthful appearance. Even they are very old, materially speaking, you can find some youthful luster about them. That we observe that although Srila Prabhupada was 70 or 80 years old, that there was always a youthful energy, a type of nava-yauvanam, just like Kṛṣṇa is ever youthful. There was that type of spiritual energy which appeared as a very youthful influence. So that is all a part of spiritual diet, spiritual energy, spiritual consciousness.

So if you want to get the fountain of youth, well you should be Kṛṣṇa conscious and you’ll stay young longer. You can eventually, you can stay young eternally when you get your spiritual body. But this body unfortunately, it will not last forever. So eventually it will. It has a planned obsoletion of a hundred years. But because people misbehave, it doesn’t even last hundred years. Sometimes even the devotees, for preaching they take on so many responsibilities that they also shorten their lifespan materially speaking. But for Kṛṣṇa they take that risk. Because of course when this body is finished, they get a spiritual body, and that body never grows old. So one can start to spiritualize one’s body even now in this material world, by this process.

Ah one time in Africa, Prabhupāda was being invited to take meals at different Gujaratis’ houses. He said that, “No, I can only go if someone becomes a life member.” So people were coming and paying life membership fee. And then Prabhupada said, “They are paying us just to eat.” But of course those who were vegetarian people, devotees. And Prabhupāda had usually would have someone offered ah and see if it was prepared. Actually, they are paying us in a sense. But they were pure devotees. They were not pure devotees. But ah they were devotees at one level, they became life member, they are giving donations, plus they were following the principles, at least vegetarian, still the devotees could feel that by taking that food it affected their consciousness, although it didn’t affect Prabhupada’s consciousness, but other devotees could feel a drain by taking that.

So sometimes for preaching, one does accept from some devotee like that who is living a sāttvika life. But ah Prabhupāda then he changed this. He said, “Well we only take pakka food outside. Pakka food is ah better for people who are not initiated. That we only take pakka food.” In Vedas, it is said that cooked food and uncooked food. So the uncooked food should be only cooked by one’s ah by initiated devotees. That means rice, dāl, boiled food - is considered uncooked. And ah cooked food means that which is fried in ghee. So normally when we go outside, we say we can only take from pure vegetarian life members, those foods which are, if we take any grain we prefer to just take some fruit and like that if we have to take. That transfers less karmas.

And if we have to take some grains, then take pakka food, that means pūrīs, some pūrīs, some fried food like that pakoras and things like that. The grains should be fried. Rather than ah chapātīs, rice, dosa are considered uncooked. So that the devotees would just take pūrī, halwa. Sabjī of course doesn’t contain any grain. So you can take sabjīs with pūrīs, if you have to take grains. But best thing is ah just to not to take grains at all, unless there is some special occasion that you are required to take grains, then you take fried grains. Otherwise ah avoid rice and all those types of things, because that will more affecting. More... For preaching sometimes, we do take this risk. It’s not… As we said, we do follow the rules for the, for our advancement. We don’t just follow the rule with no purpose. So sometimes for preaching, if you see that by accepting some engagement, or taking some prasāda... it’s also the duty of the gṛhasta to feed the Vaiṣṇava.

Generally, the Vaiṣṇava in humility wants to avoid taking on more karma than they can handle. So somewhere between, if their duty is to feed, it’s your duty to avoid, so how to do this? So... It’s a kind of... So obviously sometimes we do accept, but ah just like Śukadeva, he accepted milk. We accept according to their status. If they are pure vegetarian, then we can accept ah those type of pakka food. If they are initiated or chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, if they are doing some very important service for Kṛṣṇa, then we may accept full food. If they are not very pure, we may accept just like some soda, or water, or some sharbat, or something. Not take any food or any grains in their house. Like this we follow according to their, according to their status in devotional, spiritual life. Is that clear?

Favorable means whatever is Kṛṣṇa conscious, that will be the most favorable for the person. In preaching, if someone avoids telling a person, how maya may put them in difficulty, just you try to say always pleasant things, how will that be favorable for the other person? In many cases, there are two totally different things- being straightforward, or being non-diplomatic, and saying something favorable.

Diplomacy means like this. You want to get, just like in material life. What is diplomacy? Somebody wants to get this girl. So he tells this person something bad about that person, which is a lie, in order to create some kind of a plan, so he gets his object of sense gratification. This type of thing is diplomacy. Or like in politics, everything is diplomacy. They say, what they don’t mean. And they... that is diplomacy. Why? Because they have got some idea in their mind.

Someone comes to you, they want to get your, they want to steal your money from you. So they come up to you, and they tell you that I want to give you something, you are a very nice person. And immediately you think, “Oh, this person wants to give something.” And so your guards are taken down. But actually, in their mind just thinking, how can I steal from you? That is diplomacy. Deviousness.

A devotee doesn’t do those type of things for himself. Certainly, he doesn’t do something like that for their own sense gratification. That they accept whatever comes of its own accord. Sometimes for preaching, you have to, or to do your duty, sometimes you have to tell a person that, you are a very nice person, even that person may not be very nice. But you say, you are a very nice person. Just like Kṛṣṇa told Arjuna, you speak so many learned words, but no learned man would say those things. In preaching you can’t just come out and say something ah bad. Try to find the good in everyone.