19901031 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.23.39

vande 'haḿ śrī-guroḥ śrī-yuta-pada-kamalaḿ śrī-gurun vaiṣṇavāḿś ca
śrī-rūpaḿ sāgrajātaḿ saha-gaṇa-raghunāthānvitaḿ taḿ sa jīvam

The following is the lecture given by His Holiness Jayapataka Swami on October 31^st, 1990, New Orleans, Louisiana.

The class begins with a reading from the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, 3^rd canto, chapter 23, verse 39.

tenāṣṭa-lokapa-vihāra-kulācalendra-
droṇīṣv anaṅga-sakha-māruta-saubhagāsu
siddhair nuto dyudhuni-pāta-śiva-svanāsu
reme ciraṁ dhanadaval-lalanā-varūthī

Translation

In that aerial mansion he traveled to the pleasure valleys of Mount Meru, which were rendered all the more beautiful by cool, gentle, fragrant breezes that stimulated passion. In these valleys, the treasurer of the gods, Kuvera, surrounded by beautiful women and praised by the Siddhas, generally enjoys pleasure. Kardama Muni also, surrounded by the beautiful damsels and his wife, went there and enjoyed for many, many years.

Purport by Śrīla Prabhupād:

Kuvera is one of the eight demigods who are in charge of different directions of the universe. It is said that Indra is in charge of the eastern side of the universe, where the heavenly planet, or paradise, is situated. Similarly, Agni is in charge of the southeastern portion of the universe; Yama, the demigod who punishes sinners, is in charge of the southern portion; Nirṛti is in charge of the southwestern part of the universe; Varuṇa, the demigod in charge of the waters, is in charge of the western portion; Vāyu, who controls the air and who has wings to travel in the air, is in charge of the northwestern part of the universe; and Kuvera, the treasurer of the demigods, is in charge of the northern part of the universe. All these demigods take pleasure in the valleys of Mount Meru, which is situated somewhere between the sun and the earth. In the aerial mansion, Kardama Muni traveled throughout the eight directions controlled by the different demigods described above, and as the demigods go to Mount Meru, he also went there to enjoy life. When one is surrounded by beautiful young girls, sex stimulation naturally becomes prominent. Kardama Muni was sexually stimulated, and he enjoyed his wife for many, many years in that part of Mount Meru. But his sex indulgence was praised by many, many Siddhas, beings who have attained perfection, because it was intended to produce good progeny for the good of universal affairs.

Thus ends the Bhaktivedanta Swami translation purport of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam CANTO 3, Chapter 23, Text 39 New Orleans, 1^st of November 1990, 504 Gaurabdha, 27 [Guru Maharaj asking the date to devotees], 31^st of October.

 So this is the history of Kardama Muni and Devahūti. Kardama Muni was a great mystic yogi, one of the Prajāpatis, in charge of populating the universe, with good progeny. And he was performing severe austerities for a long time and his austerities and meditations was so pure that Lord Vishnu himself appeared to him. Vishnu is the super soul of everyone’s heart, know that Kardama Muni wanted to, was not ready to take the renounced order of life immediately and wanted to go to grihastha ashram and fulfill the instructions of his superiors to produce progeny and after that experiencing the householder life, he wanted to take renounced life. So Kardama Muni was concerned that he have a proper Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, myth in order to pursue the household life. So after performing these austerities and Lord Vishnu blessed him that he would get a good Kṛṣṇa Consciousness wife and would be able to take to leave the grihastha life and take the renounced order of life in due course so, soon after that Manu came and appealed to Kardama Muni to accept his daughter. Although she was a great Princess she was very attracted by his austerity and spiritual force of Kardama Muni and wanted to marry him. He said that, since you desired to get married and this proposal is coming of its own accord, you don’t have to work for it. Sometimes, somebody wants to get married, they have to look a long time to get a proper wife or a wife to get a proper husband. But here everything was coming of its own accord, so he was saying that, you should just-it’s not very auspicious if you refuse something that is coming up of its own accord, when that’s something you want anyway. Because, if either some false ego, you don’t take it as because as the first proposal. Further later on, you have to be embarrassed because people will be looking for the same thing and may not get it. So anyway, so various protractful words, diplomatic words and [coughs] Svāyambhuva Manu, makes his petition to Kardama Muni accept Devahūti as his wife, he remains in his hermitage in the mountains, meditating and Devahūti for a long time was serving him, just like a menial maid servant there. So being a princess, they have so many people, to take care of the princess, to wash her, to bathe her. So like movie stars, that got lot of beauty, sleep and lot of care. Devahūti was extremely beautiful but once she was working just as the wife of Kardama Muni in the ashram, she became, kind of a strange, she didn’t have the opportunity for that type of intensive care. So she actually just became like an ordinary maid servant in terms of her complexion, her hair, everything. So, Kardama Muni, she requested that to have one time and she said I was satisfied with your service or would you like to well. We got married with the purpose of having good Kṛṣṇa Conscious children, so I would like to have children from you, but now I become ugly and plain so and I’m not so attractive anymore for you. And Kardama Muni said yes and also the purpose of marriage is to have a Kṛṣṇa conscious or at least one Kṛṣṇa Conscious child. So he using mystic power called the various gandharva ladies to come and they took her under the water and bathed her and transformed her back to her former beauty. She came out of the water again as a beautiful princess and so then Kardama Muni, in order to have children he entered sex life, in order to have sex life he had to be attractive sexually to the other person. He had to be able to distinguish between a man and a woman. And so now that she was very nicely decorated. Even in Vedic in the Vedas for the garbhadhana-samskara, says that the couple should be well decorated and attracted to the other person, they thinks like that. So that the sexual desire would be stimulated, so that there can be procreation. So here, Kardama Muni he’s kind of compacting his entire grihastha life into a period of one very short intensive period. He wants to experience what is a material pleasure but he's doing that in a way dovetailing it to Kṛṣṇa because his Guru wanted that he produce his father, that he produce progeny for the universe. So he promised his wife he’d give one son and then he would leave and take sannyas. This is a kind of a different situation. His son would grow up and protect that when the son would grow up enough to protect the wife, then he would leave. That was the arrangement. Just like here in America when two millionaires get married, sometimes they sign an agreement-who gets the money, how does it divide and whatever. There was some agreement nowadays. So this was like a marriage agreement was there apart from the religious vows. But he said that I’m not going to remain with you forever, only until your son is big enough to take care of you then I’m going. So this is explaining how, he after going through these great austerities he is now uniting with his wife and to have children. So using some of his mystic potency, he’s created a beautiful flying mansion, he’s going to the gardens of the demigods, he is going to-this is his honeymoon, you can say. He is going for experiencing what is the happiness of material life, after experiencing and after requesting that worked out exactly as planned, he promised to give his wife a son, but the first child who was a daughter [Guru Maharaj laughs], so she said that, he was gonna leave, but she said wait, you said you were gonna give me a son. So then he had to nothing ever works out even for great yogis exactly [Devotees laughing]. Always some surprises [Not clear 00:12:50]. So none he did, in spite of what appears to be a preapulent situation of sense gratification but, that’s what it was, sense gratification, grihastha’s have a license to have sense gratification. One of the points of grihastha life is that before one can take renounced life this one should have experienced what is the material happiness and of that one doesn’t have any more doubt that I missed something. Somebody is a Brahmachari and then, they may not feel determined to or ready to take renounce life because well their mind is a attracted to material things, to some degree, that’s not peaceful. so going through the grihastha life, on one side is the to regulate someone, to control the nature. Also, for some in this case, he was supposed to have children. Also, he wanted to understand what was material life, what was material happiness. so then, when he would renounce, it would be completed [Not clear 00:14:24]. What happened one time was when Śaṅkarācārya was travelling and preaching, there was one great tantric yogini, a lady tantric, same as this Halloween day I guess, applicable. She was someone who was expert at various type of tamasic magical aspects of the Vedas. and many of these things are connected with sex life. so because at the age of nine Śaṅkarācārya taken sannyas. So she said that enchant him to a debate and so she asked him some kind of intimate question, which only someone who has sex life would know but having taken sannyas, how could he reply. so she was trying to trick here because it was in a debate, whoever can defeat the other person is the winner. So since his body, sannyas is for the duration of his body, his body was not to be polluted by or be contaminated or engaged in any kind of sex life. What he did is, he went into yogic meditation, left his body. And of course now they call astro-projection, but this is something more than that. This is a more dynamic form of astro-projection, you can call it but, as a yogi he left his body and in his subtle body he went and there was just at that time there was a king who was on his death bed, he was dying, so just after the soul of the king left the body and went onto its next birth, then Śaṅkarācārya entered into the King’s body. everybody’s mourning, the wife, he sits up you know aaai… they thought he was dead, just at that second, soon as the one soul left, took by Yamadūtas, or whoever, he entered into the body and came up. Then everybody oh he’s back, what a remarkable, you know active remarkable recovery.(all laughing). So then, that night he had relations with the queen. Queen was very surprise that his death bed you know (all laughing) experienced whatever the thing was that this tantric yogini had challenged him that he didn’t know. And then, the next day the King dies again, and no one knows what is going on, on their point of view. Of course no body know what’s going on. But privately, but the queen was pretty amazed. All this time Śaṅkarācārya is just like his body is there in trance and when he’s waiting, you know after a couple of days or whatever. Then he comes out of trance again and answers the question, completely surprising this yogini and defeats her. So without having broken his vow, anyway this is possible for Śaṅkarācārya great Lord Śiva incarnation. But either the Vaishnavas don’t get in this type of debates. Even Rāma, Rūpa then Sanātana Gosvāmī. Someone came and some kind of material learning debate lover, they just say ok, you are better than I am, Haribol you know. They were into protecting themselves. Onetime some big pandit came like that and he said I challenge you to a debate to Rūpa and Sanātana. He said, what you want us, you wanna say you are more scholarly than we are. He said yes. Ok is there somewhere we can sign?. He was like [Not clear 00:18:46] [all laughing]. Who has time to waste talking with these people? He don’t know anything about Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. Then what happened was he went to see Jīva Gosvāmī, he said see I have already defeated your gurus, you can sign here also. What? So then, he couldn’t take that because he knew Rūpa and Sanātana much more learned than this guy. So then, he got into debate with and defeated him. But then, later Rūpa and Sanātana heard about it and they were upset. Going to the story, externally they were upset, why you are wasting time arguing with these people, material linguists. Of course it was because for the honor of his Guru that he did. But they are externally, internally they were probably satisfied that he was doing it for the right purpose. But externally, just to show that is not our purpose to go and argue with people. Even if we can defeat them, what’s the use. So generally, the Vaishnavas avoid this kind of wrangling. so back to the original point was that, in order to fully be fixed in pure Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, the devotee needs to be firmly convinced that there is nothing more than Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. Kṛṣṇa Consciousness has everything that we need, it’s all that there is, in the sense that it is the spiritual eternal reality like Bhakti Vinod Thakur saying:

nāma binā kichu nāhiko āro,
 caudda-bhuvana-mājhe

that in the 14 worlds there is nothing else but the holy name. This is the eternal reality.

All the Material things are simply temporary they are not, they are just a flickering kind of superficial happiness but in order to realize that, some people may realize that theoretically and they can remain fixed by experiencing Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. But generally, before one gets renunciation, they have to first experience what is actually the enjoyment. But If that’s done in unregulated, and an un-improper way without any kind of spiritual objective, then one can also get mislead. So Kardama Muni had the authority to have children, he got every-he got married in a proper, everything was done in a very proper way. at the same time, he enjoyed in a way which was like comparable not with just some human being but compared on a level the way demigods enjoyed. So whatever there was to enjoy in material householder life and sex life. In a without losing sight of objective or without completely going oh but in a very, you know wonderful kind of paradise kind of situation, he had his honeymoon and his wife conceived after this, period of time unfortunately for him or unfortunate for Devahūti, whatever he said first – girl., so then she said you have to give me a son so then they had to go through the whole thing once more. So after experiencing that then Kardama Muni he was clear, ok this is what material life is, then he was determined that you know I can see now it’s a temporary happiness. This is the limit of it. and he didn’t want any more of it, he was he had enough and then he wanted to go back to experiencing, to fully concentrating on transcendental realization. So this is the reason why sex life is regulated and in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness where there is the systems of marriage and so many other things, so that people can continue to progress on their spiritual life. This is not just like cats and dogs. That doesn’t mean that a householder does not experience fully what is household life. They shouldn’t have any, within the system, given they shouldn’t have any doubt or ok I didn’t experience fully what grihastha life is. Because then, if they were trained to renounce life and their renunciation was like completely, I thought well because my household life wasn’t really happy, therefore because, I didn’t have the right wife, I didn’t really experience what sex life was or something fully. So thereafter makes them in their mind was the question of the renunciation. Their renunciation was incomplete, and they may fall down and feeling uncomplete in their material experience. Daksha of course, his life was unexplained. But His point was that you enjoy your whole life and then at the last bit you renounce. That’s one way of doing it but Daksha took it to the other extreme. Nārada muni didn’t consider that someone has to go through the grihastha life to renounce, it is a question of a spiritual transcendental knowledge. This is how one can learn from others experience, see that other people are enjoying material life, but they are still not happy. So Some people are able to just by this viewing the situation in the world, they are able to be firm in their renunciation, firm in their vows of Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. So this way, Nārada muni made the sons of Daksha into renounced devotees and then get married. But then somebody doesn’t have that perspective and they want to experience. So this is a license Prabhupad said, grihastha life is a license for sense gratification. But that’s purified because it’s for having children and its done in a regulated manner. So grihastha’s live their whole life together and they regularly try to have children according to the garbhadhana-samskara. Here Kardama Muni was a kind of different, his whole life, his whole grihastha life, he is doing tapasya and one-time kind of a honeymoon. He was just gonna have one time, probably the yogis also they know how to control themselves in all these activities and I don’t want to go into all these exquisite details, but they have a lot of control on, doing great penance they can do a lot of different things. So [coughing] he controlled himself, but his situation was one intense period of one procreation and then after that take renounced life so it’s a kind of a different scenario, it’s kind of a condensed grihastha life. All in a few weeks or whatever, as it was it worked out a couple of years because they had to wait for the children to be born and then he went back to his meditation and laughed that’s why the heading of this chapter’s called Devahūti’s lamentation, if she gets married, serves her husband and then he experiences the grihastha happiness, gives her children and he’s off. but that was the deal he didn’t want to stay in the house for the whole life he wanted to, he was a great yogi, he wasn’t an ordinary person and that was the arrangement they made. Of course Devahūti lost her husband in this way but because Kardama Muni was such a great devotee, a great yogi and because Devahūti was such a pious girl she got Kapila muni, the incarnation of Godhead as her son. You see she did tremendous austerities, as a princess to live in a hermitage, cleaning the pots, and cook and wash the ashram and get the firewood from the forest and do service and these are great austerities. Grihastha life means that the husband and wife that also, it’s not only enjoyment, they have to also accept to do their services, and accept the austerities. It’s a responsible type of life. Unless one is able to completely dedicate oneself in the renounced life like Kardama Muni was able to, then there is no reason to separate from their wife. It’s not that Kardama Muni left his wife and went off with some other woman, or that he left and did some kind of materialistic activity. He only left because this was agreed that once his son was born and grown enough he was trying to just fully dedicate himself unto Kṛṣṇa Consciousness without bothering about the family he was fully going to engage in devotional service and sannyas life. So that’s the only time when its considered legitimate for the husband to leave the family, because it’s for a higher purpose. if one leaves the family and just for some other sense gratification then it’s considered irreligious. So these are kind of- these are stories that require a lot of understanding of the background and of the-to really get a proper perspective. Otherwise it just seems, that if you just open up to this particular verse alone, Kardama Muni is having a little bit time you know, but doesn’t give you the actual perspective, what is his actual objective in the whole thing. The point is that one should never lose sight of the goal and suddenly he wasn’t losing sight of the goal but he knew that for his renunciation to be complete he had to also have a complete experience. And he didn’t want to mess around over fifty years to do it- he just wanted to do it and get it over with and then he knew that, he knew that theoretically material life was not complete compared to spiritual life, so he already knew what the conclusion was but just wanted to practically realize it. So that he would, and that’s the legitimate objective, that’s one of the objectives of household life, is to prepare one to be fully fixed in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. One doesn’t have to take sannyas to do that. Householders can also experience a lot of Kṛṣṇa even while being householders and then they do become detached from the material life. Although, as a householder they have to live with certain material facilities. But they can at the same time develop to faith and devotion to Guru and Kṛṣṇa. They can fully become more attached to Kṛṣṇa than they are to the material things. The material things are just part of their particular ashram. There is a story in Ramanuja’s pastimes about how Ramanuja tested, the people were complaining that there was this one grihastha. He was actually his interesting story that there was a big festival going on and they are taking the deities in procession to the town. But in everybody was looking at the deities and were worshipping the deities but there was this one handsome young man carrying an umbrella for a beautiful girl and just looking at her face the whole time. Just like this, you know to the point everyone were laughing at the guy like he is like in a [Not clear 00:31:12] completely. Staring at her face, carrying the umbrella like completely infatuated to the point where the deity is going by, and he don’t even know the deity is going by, he doesn’t know there is 20000 people in the street. He’s just completely infatuated by this girl. So then whole festival goes by, they were walking through the town. Now, Ramanuja is going back to the ashram after the festival’s over. And here he still sees this guy walking with a girl in umbrella you know [everyone laughs] down the street you know and then he’s looks at over a disciple says, ask that person to come here I want to talk to him. Where is this guy at he’s walking over the town--like somebody in trance you know? Then, He was in trance. So even as the disciple went over to talk to him, and he couldn’t even get his attention. He’s just like ‘aaa’ [trying to get his attention]. Finally like, if I get to tap him on the shoulder, hey you know, how are you, haribol and then he is like, oh what yeah! like waking out of a dream, you know, “what is it you want?” and then he said” here there’s Ramanuja, the great sannyasi, Acharya, he’s there, yathiraj, he’d like to speak with you. oh really, oh yeah, okay yeah then he goes over and bows down to Ramanuja and he said, yes? I am very fortunate to meet you. How can I serve you? So I just wanted to know that ahh you don’t know there was this huge festival, you are going- you are walking all over the town, holding this umbrella, looking at this woman’s face, you don’t know anything that’s going on. I just, what is your, what is your idea? I don’t understand’. He said well, I am so and so, I am a great professional wrestler from such, and such place and I just can’t, when I look at her eyes, that’s all I, I don’t need anything else. and I am just like, I want to get married to. Are you married? He said, no I am not married, but in the future we are thinking about getting married. This is kind of an unusual situation in Vedic society normally, a young man, young woman and like that intimately connected. Because he was a wrestler which was not like, kind of really, it is kind of a entertainer type of a, you know not much different from now, wrestlers, professional wrestlers like not an operational parts of the society, in terms of you know, civilization or something but, little bit at one side of society, in terms of Vedic society’s strict rules and certainly to be a dancing girl or a courtier for some Lord or king was also kind of like a society girl and movie stars or something. So it’s like they are kind of entertainers, like a little bit part of society that was not known for very strictly following all the rules like brahmanas and kshatriyas. so, but still it is pretty unusual, so Ramanuja said, you are much better to get married walking the street like that with your girlfriend, it’s not really proper in those days. Anyway, Ramanuja asked him that I have somebody that has more beautiful eyes are you willing to see that person and “sure, why not? ”, so you come with me, come and meet me at this place tonight at 6 o clock and I will show you more beautiful eyes. He said ”I’ ll come, but I can’t believe this anymore beautiful eyes than my, my [Not clear 00:35:13] [everyone laughs]. Then the boy went back over to his umbrella and down the street again [all laughing]. Somebody, that night he came there and met Ramanuja and Ramanuja took him to a very dark room to the place, actually he was taking him into the temple and those days, there was no electricity and stuff, about 59 years ago, and the temple the ārati was actually when you show the light, you were showing the whole deity. So when the Poojari was doing an ārati and then different parts of the deity are being revealed and he finally took the ārati lamp from the lotus feet up to the eyes and when he saw the eyes of the deity, then that man was startled at this, he became amazed, heart became purified by the blessings of Ramanuja, he can realize the transcendental beauty of the lotus eyes of Lord Vishnu and then he fell down at the feet of Ramanuja and said that “now I realized the most beautiful thing in the whole world, I couldn’t, I was being infatuated by some temporary thing. Anyway, Ramanuja he went back and then the man went and preached to the girl, she actually was more devotional than the boy anyway, so the boy surrendered and became a disciple of Ramanuja, and the girl she also suddenly came and surrendered to Ramanuja and they became bhaktins-bhakta, bhakta-bhaktins. And then Ramanuja initiated him and then initiated her and told them to get married. So then they lived together as grihastha’s, but he was a very dedicated servitor of Ramanuja, so I think it’s the same person I hope I didn’t get two stories mixed up, I think it’s the same person. But he would, when Ramanuja would come back from the bathing in the Kaveri river, he would hold on to his disciples arm and he was very powerful, like a bodyguard or something, taken back but he was very active servitor and he was quite intelligent, actually, industrious person and I would say, [Not clear 00:37:29] would think it’s the same couple, I think it’s the same. [Not clear 00:37:35] I think it’s the same couple, there’s two, Ramanuja had one disciple like this, so there was rest another one who was a Vaishnava, both they got, the brahmanas were envious of both, and its 2 different stories, I don’t remember, but one of the stories, well it might be that I got a crisscross, was that, anyways the brahmanas they, they were complaining, that why Ramanuja is giving so much attention to this non-brahmana, especially the grihastha. So then, Ramanuja did a test, and he [Not clear 00:38:05] ashram, and the brahmans and cut off, everyone’s dhotis are 6 yards, he just took off like few inches from each dhoti and mixed around some of the culprits of the sannyasis and, they got up in the morning, and then they found “who ripped my dhoti?” ”who took my coupon?” a big fight, you knew yelling and screaming you know [Devotees laughing] and then they came up to Ramanuja someone is throwing this, you know disturbance in the Ashram, [Not clear 00:38:34] you renounce the whole world and someone takes your coupon and you are so upset, [Devotees laughing] you got 6 yards a cloth, someone takes a few inches, you had to like you had to like kind a cover but you don’t but he didn’t reveal that he actually the one, just wanted to investigate it [Devotees laughing]. But then he said well, let’s test the next day you know so let’s test these grihastha’s, where they really, they must be really attached to, to go and you steal the jewels and the gold from the lady, she’s got so many gold and ornaments. they must be very attached, so they snuck in, in a panic, and went into the door through the roof, different kinds of versions of it, they went in, you know the wife has got, she is just kind of resting waiting for husband to come, she is lying on the bed, but she is fully dressed with her jewels on, because, he was coming back a little later that night, so she was gonna give him the evening meal, so she was fully like dressed go to bed but she’s kind of resting so she had her ornaments on and she saw that, here these two brahmanas are coming, and said well they look like my godbrothers, anyway they must be wanting some service for the Gurus so she just played as if she was asleep, and they came and they saw that she is wearing all the jewelry, so then, what to do??, so then, they kind of carefully try to take off the jewelry, but she’s just playing she’s asleep, she’s aware of because she’s wearing like this, half the jewelries under, so she thought, you know, Guru must need the for some reason–not gonna ask—but must need it, I may only be able to give the half, the other half is under me, so then she thought, let me just kind of like sleeping and roll over my sleep, so they can get the other half, so she rolls over and they freak out, oh my God, she woke up, they run off you know they get frightened and then they hide, to see what happening around -- wait to see what happens. A little while later, the husband comes, sees his wife with like half jewelry, one earring, one you know [Devotees laughing] one bracelet, you know, what happened?, and she said well, like this I was lying down, I was awake, but I was resting a little bit, then I saw that brahmin disciples of our Guru came and then they, so I just waited, whenever they need something, I just, since they are coming, like sneaking, I didn’t say anything, but they came and they started taking the jewelries, I thought maybe, the Guru needs the jewelries, so I think, what to do and then I got a kind of rolled over, playing like I’m rolling over in my sleep, so they could get the other half, but they ran off, the husband, chastised, this is because of your false ego, you thought you were giving to the Guru, nothing is yours, everything already belongs to the Guru, because of your false ego, you couldn’t give 100%, only 50% you could give, you thought it was yours. And then she said, yes, crying, I’m not surrendered to the Guru, actually you know what, I should have realized that it was all the Guru’s you know, who am I to think I am giving, he’s just coming and taking his own belongings. so then the brahmanas are like completely shocked, but it was really not what they expected. They thought she was gonna scream, oh,---. They went back and they reported to Ramanuja and Ramanuja called the brahmanas, and ok, this is what happened, they all heard the story. They are all like, ok so, who is more Brahmanical?, I was actually the one who told the devotees, I just like You had 6 yards of 6 meters of cloth, and you lost a few inches and you are all screaming. They have valuable, you know, gold, which you could buy, thousand devotees and they lost, and they are lamenting, they couldn’t give everything to the guru, if he wants it. And they all had to admit that they are much more Brahmanical than we are. So he said, we should see the Vaishnava is belonging to the particular castes-, the brahmanas- Vaishnavas are already considered to have all the qualities of a brahmana. So in this way, the purpose of Kṛṣṇa Consciousness is to achieve full devotional service.-to see that everything is Kṛṣṇa’s. and some are even in a grihastha ashram, even though they have some license that they can have sense gratification in a regulated way, but they also, many grihastha’s, many examples of grihastha’s who, although they are fulfilling their particular role as a grihastha, but their consciousness is more attached to Kṛṣṇa, more attached to the Guru and they see that ultimately everything is a property of Guru and Kṛṣṇa and they are not like, they may take the position humbly, in social, or in prayers that were attached grihastha’s. But they may actually be more detached. Sometime, someone in renounced order they are attached to very small things. Someone doesn’t say give them the respect to somebody, they get all of them you know Some little thing happens they get upset so, they simply different ashrams to work in, socially, Vedic society gives more respect to renunciation, because that’s a superficial thing that people can superficially see as renunciation but the Vaishnavas, they understand that more than even superficial renunciation is one’s actual attachment to Kṛṣṇa and devotional service and one’s actual understanding that everything is Kṛṣṇa’s and that everything should be done for the pleasure of Kṛṣṇa. So that’s even a higher level of renunciation. When Bhakti Vinod Thakur went to his Guru and asked to take sannyas, he was a grihastha with 13 children, his guru told him that ” you are already a sannyasi, you are already as good as sannyasi Because everything you do is for the pleasure of Kṛṣṇa which is the real purpose of sannyas. To them sannyas means that words, thoughts and actions. This is the three danda’s they should be offered through the control of the intelligence and the soul to the for the pleasure of Lord Kṛṣṇa. that is the real meaning, say someone is able to do that in the grihastha life, they are also considered like grihastha-brahmacharis or as good as sannyasi. Of course it’s difficult, but in Kṛṣṇa’s eyes someone who is fully engaging in devotional service is a,--in whatever ashram they are he recognizes that Lord Caitanya would accept but someone they are renounced, whether they are grihastha’s depending on how they are engaging in devotional service, but He didn’t like what somebody was renounced order and that he was a associating intimately with woman he would, because that is hypocritical you are getting social respect, you are taking vows to be act as renounced that gives you the freedom, you don’t have to get married, don’t have to do all these things, but at the same time, you renounce your family, you renounce and then take and again you are mixing with some other women, this is very bad. You reject that person. Similarly in those days of course people were more responsible if they are a grihastha, there was somethings like wife swapping and the worse somethings like people were taking it as a religious duty, they would get marriage and they are already an expert in finding a proper compatible match also and both parties were trained as this was what grihastha life intail, what it was the duty of the different people and so generally they would follow. If the husband wanted to leave and take sannyas, that could only be under the, there had to be some reason for that not just whimsically that there is someone to do that and so they would follow the grihastha life and Lord Chaitanya, he gave mercy to his grihastha disciples. Sometimes named their babies, some give them instruction to have children and different things. but they would engage in their devotional service from the grihastha ashram. In society there are very few people taking renounced order, and the usually people go to grihastha and at the end that some people might take renounced order. Very few people take it at an early age. It’s a very rare, circumstances. Even Ramanuja was a grihastha before he took renounced life but his wife didn’t cooperate so, he gave her an alternatum, two strikes and the year out and in America 3 strikes in a year but he told two strikes in a year you know but anyway his history is also gives us a lot of instructions, thank you very much,

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

Any questions? [Question not clearly audible 00:46:51] I understand exactly what you mean someone doesn’t like someone says well they think that if I am a grihastha, if I’m responsible for my wife, and I got children and I got to pay the rent, I got to pay the mortgage whatever I had to pay, I had to do all the, maintain the children and all these parts the person doesn’t like. What just he likes you the know the sex part of he likes you, but all the rest of it you know he doesn’t like, That’s what you are asking about, Yeah well that’s why being a grihastha is considered responsible because the deficit in being a dog or a cat and even a dog or a cat if you serve -- at least they you know, bird brings food back for the babies, some of them wants to be like a you know less than a worm or something you know just enjoy and then forget about it without any higher purpose so that’s uncivilized, that’s maybe less than an animal, or like some very low animal, some kind of fish or something, like just procreate and then swim off and even the fish kind of swim in spools, to protect their little whatever you call minnows. Its natural, who is gonna like all those things but that’s a part of life. If you got to create a progeny then you have to also be responsible, I think that in America, in many states, if not all the states, for a parent to be totally irresponsible and neglect their children, and their family is a criminal offense. You want to enjoy then but you don’t want to take responsibility, but that’s why most people purchase contraceptive but then that’s created other social, problems, massive venereal disease problem, People become so addictive, so attached to sense gratification then homosexuality becomes another by product so lot of, but spiritually of course such a situation is totally detrimental what to speak as spiritually and even you know materially this is as a social problem, it’s a, it’s a, very uncivilized way of acting so it creates a harmed civilization so it happens that such people in their future birth they may be born in a some kind of appropriate species of life for they can just have sex life like they don’t have to worry as a monkey or pigeon or-I don’t know, you know whatever the appropriate species is where you know they can have sex life and they don’t have to be responsible like flyoff somewhere but human being is meant to be responsible because he had to take the reactions for the karma. So if we want to enjoy, we have to also take responsibility for that. If we try to short cut it or short-change Kṛṣṇa or the law of karma in the end we get short changed. So the question what above its natural, people who wants to take off the responsibility, but that’s part of life. You see what are the responsibilities, They see what the happiness is there. He tried to develop a higher taste because where this is the highest happiness in material life is basically sex life [Not clear, one devotee interacts with GM 00:50:16] – Prabhupād explains you are eating in one restaurant and you know you may be attached to eating in that restaurant but then a friend takes you to another restaurant so look that this restaurants got better food then you don’t, it’s not a question you go to the older anymore because you found a better restaurant, it’s not like a big just renouncing like renouncing was authorized in previous ages for the sake of doing some kind of impersonal meditation on something but its forbidden in this age because nobody has the will power to just renounce. What’s in this age the type of renunciation is forbidden, one has to develop a higher taste when the person actually experiences more happiness in the Kṛṣṇa Consciousness and therefore they are not attracted anymore, they don’t consider the happiness in sex life to be comparable with the happiness of spiritual life there is automatic that the renunciation is complete of course he had to remain in other words he can’t starve a person if he got a better restaurant he goes there but if he is starving you know then he will take anything that comes along. So when a person becomes lacks in the spiritual life and if you don’t maintain that taste for Kṛṣṇa Consciousness because of offences, because of the different neglect of their spiritual practices then they put themselves in the vulnerable position then a hungry kind of position where they are going to gain material sense gratification, we have to be happy, nobody can live without being happy and if it’s not material happiness, if it’s not spiritual happiness it’s going to be material happiness. If it’s not material happiness then it has to be spiritual happiness. There is no alternative we can’t remain like in some kind of unhappy state and be stable. Because it’s our nature to be happy so that’s why a person needs to develop that higher taste. Probably one should have a, if you are full, that you are full and happy, you are satisfied that is to be controlled and if you are not satisfied then you’re in difficult because great yogis they have you know practicing, they had a great desire to achieve this spiritual realization while they were still practicing before they were completely full that sometimes the demigods get worried that these great rishis who got so much power that they might create some kind of an imbalance in the in our universal power structure. They would sometimes send you know beautiful heavenly damsels to distract their yogis from the spiritual practices as a decoys and they would sometimes succumb to these allurements and that would delay their whole progress. The same kind of a situation now exactly the same whether a similar situation happened where people tried to send beautiful women to Haridas Thakur to distract him but because he was already full in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness so he was unattracted rather the girl that was sent became a devotee and they came to-to catch Haridas Thakur having illicit sex instead they found Haridas Thakur was gone and the beautiful girl they had sent there was shaved up and wearing white cloth and was sitting there and chanting japa [GM is laughing]. They had a heart attack. Can’t believe what happened to you, you know. So now you become a devotee [GM is laughing]. So that’s not- for a certain period of time, someone out of will power can maintain when unless you develop the higher taste and you really feel peaceful in your devotional service, then it’s difficult to just renounce like this, that’s not recommended. When you, a person even if there maybe you see, very advance in spiritual life but if they become, you know in a very intimate contact with woman because even science now says that it is like certain hormones that are produced by the bodies of men and woman and when they get in close proximity those hormones create secretions in the body and create certain things to happen. It’s like it’s not even just a purely mental thing. it’s like a nature has made it to keep the world populated has all these inborn mechanism going on. Therefore normally women is not supposed to come even within 1 meter even within you know even 3 feet of a man or a sannyasi. People always – women sometimes in America, they complain why is it women have to stand separately, why can’t we all dance together and everything. But how is it possible for man to maintain his Brahmachari or his sannyas or even for a married if they are intimately connected like that. There automatically the hormones are going to start to churn around and people are going to be you know be start feeling different kind of stimulations. Not even that it is just something physiological. So for spiritual life therefore people possess-- separate man and women, they can just you know, don’t get all hormones unnecessarily agitated when you try to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. so this is very hard for some you know people a guest here in America to understand because nobody is even thinking about anything like that, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa or being God conscious or self- realized. They are just you know it’s like a socially, completely different diametrically opposed from the normal way things are happening in America or in the west, so they don’t understand it when you have a lawn near a temple, then, like in Mayapur we have a very wide temple, its 80 feet wide, so the mathaji’s stand left side-right side and men stand in left side but in the temple we have long and thin, so then you know, there is not like that much room. So then sometimes they stay in the back and they complain why we have to stand in the back, why can’t we be in the front, it’s just a question why the way the temple are laid out. If you have a wide enough temple, stand at the side, there’s no problem, but just the point that there should be a separate on. This is the Vedic recommendation in the temples, you know in the householder you’re put together, you know and you are married together in the family, the husband and, you know people are together but it says in the Vedas also that a man shouldn’t sit even alone in some place right next to his mother or his daughter, because that’s male, it’s a female and a male body, you are naturally gonna start to produce stimulation and it’s not good to sit in some solitary place alone, along with other people social restrain maybe but these things are gonna start to happen. so the Vedic society is geared to helping people to control themselves for focusing the energy and self-realization and it also has a facility for enjoying and that’s done in a particular way. That’s done in a, you know maybe this way is done in a earthly planet is one way, if you go on a higher planetary system actually Kardama Muni is not a resident of earth. He might have visited here, when he had done some tapasya, but he is actually, he is travelling in a higher planet systems when these things happen. They have a whole different set up, that’s why people in Quran and bible want to go to heaven. Since, heaven and kingdom of God is two different things. The heaven is where you really gonna enjoy life and the kingdom of God is where you serve God purely. I don’t know, they don’t know the difference in Christianity I don’t think they know the difference in the Quran, but in the Vedas they give the distinction that is the heavenly planets and then there is the spiritual world. So you want to enjoy many undertake, materially undertake the responsibility, you know. You want to live in America, you got to pay your taxes, you want to make a million dollars, you got to also pay your time. otherwise it’s like that lady, who was a big hotel owner in New York, she is a big millioner, but she wasn’t paying any taxes and she told people only stupid people taxes only poor people pay taxes. And then you know, well IRS heard about it, and then took her to court, and then they found you know, she got big heavy sense. So that’s the nature of material world, you can enjoy but then you are responsible, so that’s frustrating people otherwise I don’t want to, I don’t want to be responsible. I don’t want to have to but what’s the choice. You don’t want to, you wanna be responsible for the bad parts of life then you become God conscious and develop a higher taste and then you become free from this. This is the only way; you can try to avoid it by any another way you just get more entangled. Then a person becomes end up being responsible, that’s like in a mode of passion. You either got to go up to the mode of goodness or pure goodness and become more renounced, become more spiritual and then you can- you can transcend this type of responsible but if you try to just avoid it, you become in some mode of ignorance and then you become more entangled, you become like some kind of a alcoholic and [Not clear 00:59:12] becomes and he become more degraded and he goes down and down. so the laws of karma are like that, either you can stay the same and be in the mode of passion or you can go up spiritually to a mode of goodness and even get elevated or like Kardama Muni, some people they do tapasya to have a higher enjoyment later. They can say while this enjoyment is nothing but, may be the higher planets. but if you completely become irresponsible, you become in a mode of ignorance. Tamas and you become degraded, go back to the animalism, no free rights, unfortunate, you know the positive alternate is Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. There is no kind of negative aspect to spiritual happiness. There is no entanglement. But devotees are very responsible, they can understand that they are doing it out of love for Kṛṣṇa.so even there, here you have to do it material maybe person doesn’t want to do, but he just has to do it, so it’s like a headache. But because a devotee is doing this service for Kṛṣṇa, out of love of Kṛṣṇa, so there even the work is happy. One likes to do the service. Someone’s actually you know, fixed up devotee, they are very happy in their devotional service. I gave this experience in south America, I told this story a few times, like devotees you know, you have to tell them it’s the time for prasadam, or it’s time-generally the time to do the service you know especially, but I was in this one printing factory to make some contract for printing some of our books and I was being taken in there by the temple president and show me the books by the BBT manager. It was late at night like 8o clock I was like in the last shift, 8.30 or 9 I forget the time where they talk to the manager looking for things. All the people are working, printing you know it was really active you know, the whole factory. You know printing, and people doing the layout, people are on their printing machines, people cutting the paper, people binding, it was like a pretty medium size kind of printing press, maybe 50 persons or 25 persons. all of a sudden I was just by the door, there’s like the door, the punch card, and I was at the little table they are looking at the layout of some of our first colors, prints that came out. Bmmmmmm the bell rang, it was 8.30 and all of a sudden within seconds puc.puc.puc.puc. Every press was shut down. It was like people, you know just like huhuhuhuhuh as soon as that bell rang just within just a few seconds there was complete, there wasn’t a press running, no light, everything was boom off. And the people were like-running, grabbing their coat, running, pushing and shouting. Boom. Punching out of the punch card and boom running out of the door. I was getting knocked down. OHHHHHH… [GM is Laughing] completely, there was like a, there was like, I thought there was like a fire drill, you know-I never saw anywhere. people where running out of the place, literally, I mean I was just like if you had heard a fire alarm or something like that, you know, out you know, within 15 seconds, the place was boom, empty and I looked out of the door and saw people tshh…… running out, you know I was the last buzzer what people have gone, you know. [Devotees laughing] and I just got the impression you know, I’m talking about attachment to your work [Devotees laughing], you know here the devotees here you know, there you know Lord Caitanya’s past times see how good they are like fighting who can serve Kṛṣṇa, who can carry more water, and clean and so enthusiastic. Here the people like fighting to get out of there, can’t wait to get out you know. You know it’s like time is up let’s get out of here. Huh. [Devotees laughing] so I mean just want to get the money and get out of here. It’s like kind of like enjoying what they are doing is like they did you know work a few more minutes or something. But the devotees actually, they enjoy what they are doing because the work is connected to Kṛṣṇa, so even the service itself is a form of reciprocating with Kṛṣṇa and devotees enjoying that.

Any other question?

[one devotee asks question…not clear 01:03:20 to 01:04:36]

Well, it’s a big topic.

[Not clear 01:04:38 to 01:04:51]

That definitely sounds like that Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā 16^th chapter I believe divine and demonic natures. The demoniac can do all kind of horrible works [Not clear 01:05:02] that this certain natural. When you don’t believe that there is a God but there is a natural order to things. You just think that everything is accidental, so that philosophy lends itself to people doing well, so accidental that we can just kind of make things to happen a little faster. We can start to do things. So basically because society is more of the whole structural science and the whole structure of the government policy apart from fact that the money is in God we trust that the philosophy is basically Godless and that everything happened, every day we read in paper people get Nobel prize, because they try they have come up with the theory about the big bang or about things coming from the primordial suit. We go to f-cart center and Disney, f-cart center and they again and again give this philosophy on how everything comes simply from the materialistic evolution, there is no higher intelligence, there is no higher order, there is no higher reality. Because of that the people they do all the-they think they can do anything, what they are going to create. What you guess is good is what happens from doing these things. Certainly, doing these things is not going to in a long run is going to produce a lot of complications. The more we mess around with nature just like now we are facing with ecological imbalances that we may end up with all kind of biological imbalances. All kind of weird species of people who are you know going around and spreading rabies, who knows what’s going to happen. Anybody’s guess because we are messing around with things that we shouldn’t be messing around with. but the reason they can logically do it and then feel that it’s alright, it comes from evolution and there is no higher reality of God and in this way they get away with anything they want. And what they were doing is that we as the human race as a bring imbalances. Just like it came in the paper yesterday that there’s so much cancer generic emissions coming from the paper factories in Georgia alone that it’s like something like 25 times more than the danger level. But people don’t know that has been in the air, that inside dissolve this kind of, people are getting cancer because of all these big factories is producing so many things, now government is trying to control it. Just like all add to the fact that after we a whole way of life in America or the whole philosophy of life needs to be, needs to be brought to be improved in a-to be spiritualized. People need to be more to understand what is the reality, unfortunately science is never going to be able to give all the answers because this whole premise is a [disturbance]. so this is why our duty is to spread Kṛṣṇa Consciousness we have a scientific wing and they are also trying to use science as far as possible to prove different Kṛṣṇa Conscious, I don’t know what you call premises or principle or truth.-so that we can have a society that’s not Godless. this type of Godless society is going to go on to do, things so many difficulties, it’s because the basically society is going on in a godless way and demoniac way and your guess is as good as mine. What’s going to be produced obviously, you know crazy things people do, all because people think they are as good as God and that there is no higher truth. If we know that there is a God, we know there is a supreme truth if we follow, then we will be responsible to not only human beings but also the animals. Why do we have to- we don’t have right to take the embryos out of the womb but because they say that life only begins after 6 weeks, but according to Vedas, life begins at conception. And only the Catholics and the Buddhist and the Vedas agree but of course the Buddhist aren’t practice what they follow, what they preach anymore. It’s actually quite a few do. So that but neither anybody in the world practice what they [Not clear 01:09:41] but actual philosophy in Vedas even that was given by Buddha as well as what’s given must be in bible as the Catholics believe that is that life begins at conception. Life doesn’t actually begin; life is already there but that’s where – in the Vedas when the soul enters into the womb and begin the life cycle of that particular organism. Not that it begins at the time of 6 weeks, when the consciousness is a little more developed. Life is there even before the consciousness is developed enough to express itself. But they have like-they got it all worked out and so gives them the 6 weeks period they can start to take embryo, play around with it. So knowledge is the best remedy for ignorance and although they are very learned in certain aspects of science but in the overall picture they are considered to be māyā-prakṛti-jñāna. Learned people whose intelligence has been stolen by illusion as mentioned in the Bhagavad-gītā. Hare Kṛṣṇa.