19911028 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 7.10.31-35

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on October 28^th, 1991 in Atlanta, Georgia. The class begins with a reading from the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, 7th Canto, Chapter 10, verse 31 through 35.

Jayapatākā Swami:

śrī-nārada uvāca

ity uktvā bhagavān rājaṁs
tataś cāntardadhe hariḥ
adṛśyaḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ
pūjitaḥ parameṣṭhinā

Nārada Muni continued: O King Yudhiṣṭhira, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is not visible to an ordinary human being, spoke in this way, instructing Lord Brahmā. Then, being worshiped by Brahmā, the Lord disappeared from that place.

Jayapatākā Swami: No purport, text 32

tataḥ sampūjya śirasā
vavande parameṣṭhinam
bhavaṁ prajāpatīn devān
prahrādo bhagavat-kalāḥ

Prahlāda Mahārāja then worshiped and offered prayers to all the demigods, such as Brahmā, Śiva and the Prajāpatis, who are all parts of the Lord.

tataḥ kāvyādibhiḥ sārdhaṁ
munibhiḥ kamalāsanaḥ
daityānāṁ dānavānāṁ ca
prahrādam akarot patim

Thereafter, along with Śukrācārya and other great saints, Lord Brahmā, whose seat is on the lotus flower, made Prahlāda the king of all the demons and giants in the universe.

PURPORT: By the grace of Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva, Prahlāda Mahārāja became a greater king than his father, Hiraṇyakaśipu. Prahlāda's inauguration was performed by Lord Brahmā in the presence of other saintly persons and demigods.

pratinandya tato devāḥ
prayujya paramāśiṣaḥ
sva-dhāmāni yayū rājan
brahmādyāḥ pratipūjitāḥ

O King Yudhiṣṭhira, after all the demigods, headed by Lord Brahmā, were properly worshiped by Prahlāda Mahārāja, they offered Prahlāda their utmost benedictions and then returned to their respective abodes.

evaṁ ca pārṣadau viṣṇoḥ
putratvaṁ prāpitau diteḥ
hṛdi sthitena hariṇā
vaira-bhāvena tau hatau

Thus the two associates of Lord Viṣṇu who had become Hiraṇyākṣa and Hiraṇyakaśipu, the sons of Diti, were both killed. By illusion they had thought that the Supreme Lord, who is situated in everyone's heart, was their enemy.

PURPORT: The discourse concerning Lord Nṛsiṁhadeva and Prahlāda Mahārāja began when Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira asked Nārada how Śiśupāla had merged into the body of Kṛṣṇa. Śiśupāla and Dantavakra were the same Hiraṇyākṣa and Hiraṇyakaśipu. Here Nārada Muni is relating how in three different births the associates of Lord Viṣṇu were killed by Lord Viṣṇu Himself. First they were the demons Hiraṇyākṣa and Hiraṇyakaśipu.

Thus ends the Bhaktivedanta Swami translation and purport to texts 31-35 of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Chapter 10, Canto 7.

Jayapatākā Swami: So Jāya-Vijaya, who were the gatekeepers in the heavenly planets, excuse me, in the Vaikuṇṭha planet, had stopped the four Kumāras from entering. And it was in the previous canto, sixth canto.

So now for over one canto, this continuation of them had one question, how when they were cursed... Oh no, that was too much more important. Anyway, now there was a question about it, about Dantavakra and Śiśupāla. So it's the same Jāyā-Vijāya, taken birth three times.

If you recall, they were cursed by the four Kumāras to take birth as demons. And Lord Viṣṇu offered them an alternative of three births as a demon, fighting with the Lord and being killed by the Lord, or seven births as devotees. So they chose the first option.

So due to the illusion, when they take their birth, they are automatically inimical to the Lord. Here the Lord had warned Brahmadeva not to give such benedictions to the demons, to the envious. It is dangerous to give benedictions to demons who are by nature ferocious and jealous.

If a demon gets special powers, then instead of using it for the upliftment of others, they use it to persecute, torture, control others for their own personal pleasure. And Rāvaṇa, he got also supernatural powers from Lord Śiva. Then he also created a lot of disturbance, and he arrested all of the demigods and put them on the steps to his throne.

So every day he would walk on their backs up to his throne, just to show that he was so powerful. Indra, Vāyu, Candra and all the different devas were there.

So then Nārada Muni, someone said, “Well! Why are you stepping on their back? That's not so painful as it would if you were to step on their stomach, walking up.”

He thought, “Yes, that's even better.” So he turned them over and had them all lying on their back looking up, and he would step on their stomach as he walked to his throne. What happened was that because all the devas are in charge of the district, different astrological signs, that they were frozen on their stomach, but they couldn't look at Rāvaṇa.

But now that they are put on their back, they are all looking and completely cursing him, wishing him all misfortune and everything, completely finishing, you know. So that was a special deal to reduce his good fortune very quickly. So the point is that when they get power, they misuse it.

This is a problem of that. Unless people are God conscious, unless they are devotees… if they get weapons of destruction, if they get any very powerful weapon, they, by nature, would not hesitate to use it, even if it meant the suffering of so many other people. Just like it was seen that they get so worked up for some political purpose that even like in the assassination of the Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi, that lady sacrificed her own life. She tied the plastic explosive on her back, bent down to touch his feet, and then blew herself up and blew the Prime Minister up. And they tried to catch the mastermind of the whole plot. And then when they surrounded his house, he and five other people, they ate cyanide pills and he shot himself in the head and everybody else chewed cyanide pills and killed themselves.

When they broke in the house, they were already dead in a circle holding their hands. So it's like they are so wrapped up in what they are doing that even they kill themselves, sacrifice their life. But then they also, without hesitation, they killed so many people.

So you can see that kind of zero option. Well, what do they call it? Previously, the nuclear system for protecting against nuclear attack was thought that, “Well! You may blow us up and we will wipe you out too.” So that was mutual-assured destruction, MAD.

But if you have a really mad person, they could care less. I am sure there is some people in the Middle East that if they had, they could care, even if it was a trade-off, for them to destroy the demon America or whatever. So you get different people with different kind of ideas.

And this is not something new. This is something from the time immemorial. So even Kṛṣṇa is saying, “Don't give a ferocious, violent, cruel, demonic person some special powers.”

So that goes for all time. So Kṛṣṇa, He is more selective. If some demon worships Him and wants to get special power, He doesn't mechanically have to give. He uses His discretion. But generally the other devas, they tend to, especially Lord Śiva tends to give very easily without considering the pros and cons. Brahmā was supposed to consider the pros and cons, but he also was very impressed by the austerity of Hiraṇyakaśipu. So he surrendered to those austerities. But then Hiraṇyakaśipu misused them. So Viṣṇu is warning, Narasiṁha is warning that, “Don't give this type of benediction to the demonic people.”

It was just like Ditī. She later became very angry that her sons were killed. Out of attachment she thought that this is all a trick by Indra.

“Indra has arranged it to kill my two beloved sons, Hiraṇyākṣa and Hiraṇyakaśipu, those sweet two boys. So I should arrange to kill Indra. So for one year she served her husband real sweetly, always smiling, never a harsh word, always giving everything, you know, serving just to get everything really clean, really nice. Food, stuff, offer, everything just like completely serving without, you know, never a discouraging word should be heard. Everything, you know, really. He became so impressed by the devotion of his wife, he thought that, “Oh, she's such a sincere, humble, dedicated wife. I should give her some benediction.” Of course, he was a very powerful yogī, so he could give special benediction.

So, then he said, “Well, you have served so nicely, I like to give you whatever you want. Just tell me what you would like to have.” Once he said this word, “Are you sure you will give me whatever I want? These were the magic words she was waiting for.

He said, “Yes. All right.”

“What I want is a son who will be the enemy of Indra.” Meaning that she wanted a son who could kill Indra.

And then he said, “Oh, how did this happen? How did I? Here I thought, this lotus-faced, beautiful princess who has been serving so nicely with all smile. How has she done this to me? After all this nice service, then what does she ask for? Is to kill her own nephew. She wants a son who can kill her own nephew.”

So he was really shocked. She could have made this diabolical plan the whole time. But then he was careful. He didn't just give immediately what she wanted.

He thought for a minute and said, “Now how can I get out of this? I gave her my word. I had to give her what I promised. At the same time, I should do it in my most intelligent way so that it will turn out all right.” So then he told her to do what's called the Payovrata. For one year worshipping Viṣṇu. And it's a very intricate ritual which has got countless slip-up points. But if you do it, he said, “If you do it perfectly, then you can have a son who will be the enemy of Indra. You can kill Indra. But if you mess up, then you will have a son who will be a friend of Indra.”

So then Indra, when he realized what was happening, then he came and he started serving his auntie like a menial servant. And he was just waiting when she's going to slip up. And at the end, he was getting really worried because she hadn't slipped up. It was already so many months over.

Just at the very end of the period. So he was trying to think how he could also make it a little difficult for her. Maybe make a little like fog or something.

Anyway, finally she did mess up. She drank water with two hands. She was only supposed to drink with the right hand.

Immediately, she made some other mistakes. So immediately he came and cut up her children in the womb. But they were crying out, “Hey, we're your friends.”

Don't kill her. Because they immediately became his friends as soon as she messed up. And then instead of one, they became how many? Forty-nine or something? Nine.

Forty-nine. So, huh? The Maruts. So in this way, they get benediction. But Kaśyapa was a little more careful to give a benediction in such a way that there was a chance to change the whole situation.

So sometimes, even a very highly placed person, they get wrapped up in here, in enviousness, in revenge. And in the previous time, there were people who were specifically demons and people who were more saintly. And sometimes even the saintly person got angry and wanted revenge. But the demons were always ready to do whatever they had to do to control. And sometimes even the saintly people got angry and got revenge. But demons were always ready to do whatever they had to do to control. They didn’t have any qualms. Any qualms. They would do anything to serve the purpose.

So, in this age of Kali, we had a situation where, in us, we have both divine and demoniac natures. Nobody is born so pure that you are free from all kind of demoniac nature.

Usually, like the devas are so much in the mode of goodness. Still, there may be a little tinge. But in this age, people have both kind of weakness.

They have some good tendencies, some bad tendencies. Some people are more bad and some people are more good. But it's hard to find someone who is predominantly, exceedingly, one quality.

Because people are not of such elevated character in any one particular concentration. So, it's very difficult to preach in the Kali-yuga because the people do have a certain nature to want to reject Kṛṣṇa consciousness for even the slightest reason. To become envious or angry against others for the slightest reason.

They are not so intelligent. So, the demoniac nature can take over. So, normally, people might think of something like that. But then they will use their discretion, use their intelligence, and control that demoniac thought. In the age of Kali, people are notably weak in being able to resist this type of influence. So, what does Lord Caitanya recommends that we should be tṛṇād api sunīcena. We should be more humble than a blade of grass in the street. We should be so humble that Prabhupāda explains, we don't feel any kind of resentment. This resentment is a reflection of a demonic nature.

Resenting are the different situations that may occur. The blade of grass, if sitting in the sun, getting the hot sun, sometimes somebody's walking on the blade of grass, Prabhupāda explains that the grass doesn't protest. If someone steps on a blade of grass, bents over, and later one comes back again. Similarly, the tree, so tolerant, people sit down under the tree, they take shelter of the tree, but whenever they want they just go and chop off the branches of the tree. So, the tree doesn’t protest even though people act so cruelly sometimes, but the tree is bulldozing them over and so on.

So, Lord Caitanya, we have to be, in this Kali-yuga, that tolerant because we have this nature that can easily flare up and become envious, we can become resentful, become bitter. If we are not completely humble, someone may come up to us and mistreat us, call us a dirty name, or sometimes it's the outside people, it doesn't hurt the heart so much because the people we know, we don't really have a relationship with. If someone who we have some form of relationship with or some other devotee criticizes us, it hurts because of some relationship. So these things are, from a near and dear one, take a greater effect. The devotee, however, can overcome this by just being super-humble, super-tolerant, straw-humble and tree-tolerant.

That requires a certain degree of focus on the objective of being Kṛṣṇa Conscious, and not letting anything take it away from us. You can see how the demons, to achieve their ends, they are very determined. Hiraṇyakaśipu did incredible austerities. Rāvaṇa did amazing austerity. Even Ditī had tremendous determination to achieve her objective. She got purified by the devotional service for one year. So, in the end she was happy anyway.

That's the point. If we tolerate our urge to be resentful, to be envious, to be angry, only use that not against Kṛṣṇa, but for Kṛṣṇa, then by practicing devotional service, eventually our mood will change. We won't maintain that bitterness.

We shouldn't maintain it. But sometimes devotees fall into this kind of a demoniac influence where they start to judge different devotees according to ethnic groupings or according to their various kind of superficial circumstances and neglect to see any good qualities in the devotees. Simply speak bad about one or another or some other devotee.

And this way, instead of using their time to glorify Kṛṣṇa, they use it to criticize the other devotees, which at best is a waste of time and at worst might even be a vaiṣṇava-aparādha. As Prabhupāda said, we don't hate the diseased, we hate the disease. We are trying to cure the disease in different people.

Whoever comes here to the temple just to render devotional service, it's understood that they are going to have defects. Nobody is going to be cent percent pure. The point is that they should be willing to take the treatment to cure themselves.

As long as they are taking the treatment, then there is a good hope they can be quickly cured. So, this is very important that we exercise this control over our consciousness. Otherwise, we will find ourselves being sapped, drained of spiritual consciousness.

Prahlāda is the personification of tolerance. He was tortured so many different ways, but he was always tolerated. So, he was so highly respected, Brahmā and other devas, they personally performed the abhiṣeka.

When a king is installed in the Vedic culture, then there is the abhiṣeka performance of the king. It's like you install a Deity, you install a king, then he is installed with the duty of representing Kṛṣṇa for protecting the citizens. Just as God is protecting everyone, he is supposed to protect the citizens.

If he doesn't, then he has to suffer. Karmas, if he protects the citizens properly, engages them in God-conscious activities, then he gets one-sixth of the good karmas or one-sixth of the bad karmas. Just like when people get married, their karmas are merged. That time, whatever the wife does, the husband has to take bad karmas if she does bad things. If she encourages the husband to do good things, she gets 50% of the good karmas. That's the material viewpoint of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

It's transcendental, so you get full benefit if you encourage someone to be Kṛṣṇa conscious. So here the king, when he is installed, that means he is wedded with his prajā, in a sense.  He is connected now with the prajā.

All the people of his kingdom, whatever they do, he gets a reaction, good or bad. So if the majority of people are good, then he ends up with a plus. If the majority are bad, then he's in trouble.

So if a person, if the king is a little God-conscious, and he understands that he is actually connected with his citizens like that, the tendency would be that he would be a lot more motivated to try to protect them and try to create a very good rapport with them and try to engage them in good activities where they would be gradually improving in their God-consciousness because he has got a very much, a very vested interest. We heard that, you know, the people playing in the big, in the World Series baseball game, then whoever the winning team is, each player gets a hundred thousand. If they lose, they get fifteen or nineteen or something.

It's not only just a game, but they have, you know, they got some immediate, I mean, they can get a lot of money if they win. Also, it's not just like that. They are professional players. They are not playing for this love of the thing, they are playing for the money also. So in the law of karma, people in a responsible position, they also have to pay in terms of hard karma or they get rewarded in terms of puṇya. And anyway, they are going to get the reaction.

So they naturally, if they are a little conscious, they will take this very seriously. Of course, the demoniac kings, they care less about karma. They are atheistic and they do so many things.

They are riding on their previous good karma and they finish off quick.

They go as long as their previous karmas are going, and then when it's all over, then they are finished. It's amazing, in some third world countries, to see somebody who's like a big President or a dictator, and all of a sudden, phat! It's like, you know, he's like arrested, or he's shot, and, okay, new one.

It's like, you know, his bank balance of karma was finished, and okay, immediately time to go to Yamarāja and pay the debt. In law of karma, you get your good karmas first, and when that's finished, then all the bad karmas are waiting for you to pay. So, they got enough bad karmas piled up there, when their positive bank balance is finished, and they just... Yamarāja's waiting to help them pay back the debt.

They have special debtor colonies there, for bad karma. So here, this is such an auspicious occasion. I mean, normally a king is just installed by some brāhmaṇas, and they chant some mantras, and have a big ceremony, invite the leading citizens.

But here you have such a major occasion, you have Lord Brahmā. I mean, there is very few kings that are personally installed by the number one brāhmaṇa of the whole universe, Lord Brahmā. And, they gave... Just like, maybe with Pṛthu Mahārāja, who had a very amazing installation, a coronation.

And then here, Prahlāda. There is a very few that have that kind of coronation. So, this is... Prahlāda, he doesn't have any particular desire, but he is instructed by Nṛsiṁhadeva to take up this role. So, he is doing it. Devotee, if they get some material facility, they don't throw it away, they don't... If Kṛṣṇa is giving it spontaneously, then they may accept it and use it for Kṛṣṇa. That's Kṛṣṇa's desire.

Prabhupāda was upset that sometimes, when he was…he mentioned that it was not proper, not very appropriate that somebody works hard their whole life amassing a certain fortune, a certain capital, and then they decide they want to surrender to God; so, just before surrendering, they give it all away to their materialistic relatives and then go to Kṛṣṇa empty-handed. So, their whole life, all the work they did, just went for some material purpose, and other people use it for their sense gratification.

And better, there is a formula there, where you give part to the relatives, part you keep for emergency, and the part you give for Kṛṣṇa, His devotees, the preaching. Things should be done according to the, to the ratios given by the previous ācāryas. So, everything has got a certain instruction, a certain status, how it is supposed to be done, whether a person is a king, or whether they are a woman, or whether they a conditioned soul in the age of Kali.

There is guidelines given in the Vedas. Under the guidance of a spiritual master, a bona fide spiritual master, we can see what is the thing we are doing at a particular... The biggest danger for devotees is to somehow or another stop chanting, stop rendering devotional service.

And Lord Caitanya says that in order to do kīrtanīya-sadā hari, in order to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa all the time without stopping, you have to be more humble than a blade of grass, you have to be more tolerant than a tree, you have to be ready to offer respect to others, and not expect any respect for yourself. It's very rare that even if you see someone is a rascal, and you call him, “You are a rascal!” then he gets angry. Doesn't solve the problem.

Sometimes in some material situation, Americans try to just become angry and aggressive, and occasionally it works. But in terms of preaching, ultimately a person has to voluntarily accept what we say. See, in a business relationship, someone may not like it, but then if he has his own vested interest, then they may swallow their pride.

But when you are preaching, it's not a question that a person's obligated to accept what you are saying because of some vested interest, you know, it’s their own higher interest, but they don't, not their immediate, preyas, material interest. It was just like recently there was some article about somebody that somehow, he lost four hundred, he lost four hundred dollars somehow due to the mess up of some company he was working with, some company that he bought something from. But because he was supplying, as a bank, bank gave him four counterfeit hundred dollar bills.

He went to the next place, and then they said it's counterfeit money. Went back to the bank and they said, “How can you prove that it was our money? You might have got it from somewhere else.” So in this way, he happened to be providing checks for the bank. He was a check printer, so if he made a big stink about it and sued the bank, then he will lose the job. So he said, “What can I do? It looks like I am out four hundred bucks.” So here is the person, it's not like he is happy or, but he just had to swallow the loss because he doesn't want to lose the ongoing business he is getting with the person.

So a lot of times, maybe you go to the airline or something, and they mess up your reservation and you get angry and this and that because they want to keep your business, so they just, you know, they swallow it. But when you are preaching, you don't have that kind of a hold on someone.

If you go to someone and start becoming angry with them, or, you know, “You are fallen, you are a rascal, you are committing sin” this, that, something, they just may get turned off and just not come back anymore. It's like somebody said yesterday that people take the Kṛṣṇa banks and different things to donate for the temple, but sometimes they forget to bring it here to the temple. Some say they have actually full banks, completely filled with coins and money, but they forget to bring it to the temple.

And it's like when the mortgage bill comes, it's like they are looking for you. You have to pay, otherwise they will foreclose your house. But giving to Kṛṣṇa, it's like you don't get your house foreclosed on.

So they forget to bring it to the temple. Unless somebody comes by and picks it up, maybe it just sits there. So that in a similar kind of way that in this material world, Kṛṣṇa has arranged it that if you don't eat, if you don't sleep, if you don't pay your rent and so on, you suffer materially.

The whole suffering, of course, in the largest sense, is because we are in a material world, that if we serve Kṛṣṇa, we would leave this material world. But that requires someone to be very God-conscious to understand that reality. So the devotees, knowing that people are by nature foolish, by nature they are fallen, by nature they are not God-conscious, so by nature they may not, very few people will spontaneously come forward and follow up on their pledges.

They need to be encouraged, they need to be reminded. And if that's not done in a positive way, they may also become angry and say, “I don't have to give you this, so many other religious institutions or there is so many other churches and temples.” So Lord Caitanya's system was that to be very humble, to praise the other people.

“No, you are such a nice gentleman, you are so sincere, you are so generous, you are so”, and in this way because if you tell them, “You are a real rascal, nonsense, you know, you are a miser”, the person will say, “Well! Bugger off! get out of here. Tough luck, you know.” They get angry, impatient, they won't give.

But if you are very kind and nice in the preaching, then they may be encouraged, “Yes, I am nice, I am generous, alright, I will give you something.” Sometimes they say, “No, I am not nice, I am not generous, I am all right, I am...” He may be…But in general, that's the preaching, is that one has to be very tolerant. People come up and abuse the devotees. They do so many things. But the devotee doesn't... They defend themselves if it's a question of physical injury, but otherwise just… things... Verbal abuse, I think, they have to tolerate. In America now they are talking about abusing women in the workplace. They don't have any idea what abuse people... what abuse the Hare Kṛṣṇa’s have to go through to sell books sometimes. The number of... You will be surprised, you know, the number of people that sometimes have such a vocabulary that never goes beyond four-letter words. But there are many nice people, and there are many people that are open to receiving Kṛṣṇa's mercy. And the devotee has to be very controlled. This is the sense control.

To be controlled, to be humble, to be patient, to be tolerant. To know that these people are really suffering due to the material laws of nature. And that the devotees have to be so much in control of their own faculties that they can cut through the other person's mode of ignorance and passion and bring out the little spark of goodness in them and engage them in Kṛṣṇa's service.

Prahlāda, he was offenseless. But his father was completely impatient, demonic by nature, so he couldn't tolerate anything. It wasn't completely what he wanted to hear.

There may be a few representatives of Hiraṇyakaśipu in a minute sense, but generally people have both in nature. They are not like so predominantly demonic. Very few might be. Those people we avoid. So you avoid the demonic, you preach to the innocent people. So if there is an innocent person, rather than agitate their lower nature, you try to address their higher nature, try to inspire them to engage in Kṛṣṇa's service. Lord Caitanya was so expert when He met the sannyāsīs led by Prakāśānanda Sarasvatī. If He came in and said, “Look!, you are all Māyāvādi, impersonalists, Mayavadi haya kṛṣṇa aparādhī – You are all offenders of Kṛṣṇa. I am a pure Vaiṣṇava. I have bhakti-yoga knowledge, I can smash all of you people.” Something like that would have been a non-starter. But instead, although these all are true, completely correct statements about Māyāvādīs, and a lot of them are already spoken by Lord Caitanya to His confidential devotees.

But when Lord Caitanya went there, He just took a very humble position where they had all washed their feet. He sat right in the dirty foot water.

He said, “What are you doing sitting over there? That's a dirty place.”

He said, “No, no, you are all great sannyāsīs, very advanced. I am of a lower category. So I am just sitting here. How can I go and sit amongst all of you?”

Then they said, “No, no, what is this? Why are you being so humble? You come here and sit with us.” So immediately they were, obviously there was some anger before them because they were always criticizing Lord Caitanya, but He approached so humbly that it was very hard to find anything wrong with Lord Caitanya when He was being so humble.

So that's the expert nature of Lord Caitanya's preaching. And basically, in America, we were in that situation where people… Prabhupāda said there is a very predominant tendency to be angry at many people. The number of vegetarians is not so great. So we had to do from our side the best possible thing to create in them a positive impression. And in our own spiritual life, in our dealings with other devotees, we had to also be very careful not to fall into the demoniac kind of a nature. We have important works to do, we have important things to achieve. In our devotional service, we have to achieve the goal. But if we are very tactless in our dealings, then we can simply create disturbance.

If we become priya, these are the kind of things we have to avoid. Both examples are given in the Vedas, the demoniac and the divine. Kṛṣṇa says in Bhagavad-gītā there are two kinds of persons, the divine and the demoniac.

So we are supposed to avoid the demoniac nature and to take the divine nature. First thing is become a devotee, and then that makes it very easy. Without being a devotee, no one can get permanent good qualities.

So devotee appreciates anything done for Kṛṣṇa because Kṛṣṇa is our worshipable object. Kṛṣṇa is our Lord, He is our life and soul. Gaura-Nitāi is our life and soul.

Anyone who is doing anything for Kṛṣṇa, that's appreciated. You see how people, they accept some material thing and become very attached to it. Just like in the sports, people become so attached to a particular team just because it's in there.

Just due to some illusory kind of superficial, frivolous attachment. To the point that people, they start crying if their team loses, if it's not winning, they become angry and frustrated. And if they win, they become completely intoxicated.

When I was in June, I was in Chile, and the day after I left Chili, the Chilean football team won the South American Cup. The people became so happy, they had big festivals in the street, champagne for everyone, drinking, dancing, you know. “We won, we won”, the first time they ever won. And eight people were killed because of drunken driving and knifings, and four hundred people were put in the hospital. This was the victory celebration. Because, of course, it's in the mode of passion and ignorance. But they get so much worked up over something, you know.

What does it matter? Who remembers, you know, three years ago or ten years ago? You have to look up and see that who won what. Doesn't have any permanent value at all. The people get so much worked up over something. So māyā is very expert in creating very subtle and gross kind of attachments for things which don't have any real value at all.

So we are trying to break people's attachments from these illusions and let them awaken their natural attachments for Kṛṣṇa. But even those people in the illusories, anyone who's helping, you know, everybody who scores a point or does something, you know, every team, you know, team fan becomes like intimate friends, you know, because they are the fans for the same team. These are all perverted reflections.

But actually, the devotees are supposed to be very close to each other. They are supposed to be intimate brothers, sisters. Because they are all serving the same Lord. They all have the same objective. They have the same purpose, is to see that Kṛṣṇa's interest is promoted. And anyone who is dedicated to that, anyone who's on the same team, you know, whoever they may be, then we are brothers.

But māyā is very expert, it is Kali-yuga, to create any reason to create division. Age of quarrel. Division between husband and wife, division between God-brothers and God-sisters, division between, you know, spiritual and a spiritual organization. There is always, this is a divide and rule tactic which Kali is always using.

And when we are not humble and tolerant, when we become resentful and angry and we allow ourselves to fall into the material mode of ignorance and passion, any little thing becomes a reason for distracting us in the real business which is focusing all our energy and promoting Kṛṣṇa consciousness. If we do that, then where is the difficulty in progressing? But because we don't do that and we become involved in many other different types of personal relationships which are not at all based on Kṛṣṇa consciousness; even if you don't personally like someone's personality, but if you see that the person is doing something for Kṛṣṇa, just on that basis, he is worthy of respect, worthy of being offered obeisance, worthy of giving our affection, our love, appreciation.

So in the spiritual world, this kind of rivalry in a negative sense is completely absent. There may be a competition, like Kṛṣṇa is playing with the cowherd boys, they are playing different kinds of sports, they are rooting for each side, then whoever the winning side, what's the punishment or what's the, they have to carry the victors on their shoulders. So, if you lose to Kṛṣṇa, you have to carry Kṛṣṇa on your shoulders. If you win, then Kṛṣṇa has to carry you. So everything is transcendental. Winning or losing, it's all the same.

It's all connected with Kṛṣṇa. So there is no desire to harm or hurt. Everything is very chivalrous, very much filled with love. A devotee gets to carry Kṛṣṇa in complete bliss. Carrying Kṛṣṇa… he loves Kṛṣṇa. So there is a transcendental competition. Someone does better, they say, “Oh, you have done very nicely. You are serving Kṛṣṇa so sincerely. You have produced these nice results.

And I would also like to learn from you and do something nice for Kṛṣṇa. The whole purpose is that Kṛṣṇa is pleased. It's not a material thing.

Not that by pulling down another person, that will help me to go up. Rather, even if I can help another person, that will help me to go up. At least if I don't harm another person, their progress, and I can do something, that's all right.

In the American… sports, a lot of times there is a lot of cheating people. In the bicycle races, they have to go in the packs of four, because if you are alone, as soon as they catch you alone on the stretch, they will put something in the spokes of your tires or push you off the road, dump you off a ravine or something. These are very famous. So, they always have to go in groups of four and block the other people, because it's all dirty. Cut throat. Whatever it takes to win. That's the material world. And that's why Prabhupāda said that this place is no place for a gentleman or a gentlewoman, because it's cut throat. Because the demonic nature will inspire someone to do anything to win, even violent, vicious, horrible things.

So that type of attitude has to be very systematically eradicated from the society of devotees. It should be just like in all kinds of sports, there is rules of the game. And then if you break the rule, then there is the umpires that foul, right? Blows the whistle.

Different sports have different, you know, for fouls, there is different penalties. You can get thrown out of the game. If you commit too big an offense against a Vaiṣṇava, you get thrown out of the game. Kṛṣṇa takes away the mercy, back to zero. If it's a little of fouls, little offenses, you get a little bit covered up, you are sent back. So we have to, we don't have like an umpire.

Then we have the umpire. Kṛṣṇa is the umpire ultimately, and he is deciding. But we have to be our own kind of judges, and we have to take the judgment from the guru and the senior devotees.

We have to, as soon as somebody does something which is not Kṛṣṇa conscious, we should be fouled. So even if somebody hears someone else criticizing another devotee, or doesn't protest it, doesn't walk away, they are also implicated. One person making a foul, it gets compounded.

If anybody refers to another Vaiṣṇava as being of a particular ethnic group in a derogatory way, not just like a descriptive way, just like, you know, how to distinguish one devotee from in terms of like, when you go and recognize them in a crowd or something. But if it's done as a derogatory way, you know, he is a, he is a Gringo devotee, or he's a Yank, or he is a Bengali, or he is a this or that, or something. In a derogatory sense, it's an aparādha.

It's a hellish mentality. Svarūpa Dāmodara, Rupa Gosvāmi, and Sanātana Gosvāmi, they were born in Bengal. We don't consider them Bengali, you know, but the devotee followers of Svarūpa Dāmodara follow to be Bengali devotees.

So there is great pure devotees. Bhakti Cāru Mahārāja is also born in Bengal. So many, Śrīla Prabhupāda was born in Bengal.

We see devotees are transcendental. There may be other rascals who are born in, there may be rascals who are born in Bengal, or rascals who are born in America. Does this mean all American devotees are rascals, or Bengali devotees are rascals? So we should never go down to that level in our discussions.

There may be some devotees for a particular period of time may be lazy, but if we say that all the devotees are lazy, everybody in the āśrama is a lazy bum. There is only three devotees who are sincere. That means if there is a fourth devotee in the temple that's sincere, then we are guilty of a vaiṣṇava-aparādha.

So any kind of generalization, any kind of ethnic slurs, any kind of falling into tamo-guṇa is hellish. And it's so easy to fall into it because all around it's all pervasive in the material world. But that's what everybody expects, that people who are the āśramites who are living in the āśrama, they are going to be exemplary, they are going to be free from these defects.

And we better be. Otherwise how we can live together as a community? How can we live together? We are not like the Hiraṇyakaśipu and his band of demons who are all together because they just want to exploit people. We are here together because we want to do something for Kṛṣṇa.

Many times, I have heard the comment made, well I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't be with you, just like I was like from a particular background, maybe some other devotee was from another background, to sometimes hear the comment that I would never be together with you if it was a material situation. We don't have the same interest; we don't have the same material interest or material personality. But as devotees we were together because we were all trying to serve Prabhupāda, we were all trying to serve Caitanya Mahāprabhu.

That is why Prabhupāda called ISKCON the United Nations of the Spiritual World. In Māyāpur you have a PLO X commando sitting next to you know an Israeli, sitting next to, you know, an American, sitting next to, you know, another Chinese, all taking mahā-prasāda together in the Māyāpur, considering each other brothers. You go to Israel and it's very, very bodily conscious. You go to the Middle East. When I visited Israel and I have to fly to the Middle East, I had to take off all the stickers that showed that I went to Israel, so that I would land in the Middle East with a sticker that indicated that I… they had to give me double, they had to give me double luggage tanks, so that I would switch to luggage tanks when I got to Athens and was flying the Middle East. So, they knew that if, if anywhere it would indicate that I was, that when they gave me a reissued ticket they had to blur the ticket stamp and didn't show that it was in Tel Aviv that it was issued because if I landed I could be persecuted because I had gone to Israel. So devotees are transcendental to this kind of situation.

One devotee from Nairobi was preaching in Bangladesh with us and he was telling all the people that he visited South Africa, you know, ten years ago, and of all the institutions in the whole South Africa, the only institution that had the Afrikaners, the Blacks, the Indians, the Colours, all the different ethnic groups, all together in the same temple. There wasn't another, not even a church, there wasn't anywhere that was so open to let everybody in the same institution completely freely. This is our claim to fame that we are completely above body consciousness, but we had to religiously guard this heritage that Lord Caitanya gave us. Vaiṣṇave jāti-buddhi nāhi, no caste consciousness. We judge each person individually. If a number of individuals have similar defects and they are from the same ethnic background, well that's maybe a coincidence, maybe it's a trait, but anyway, everyone is individual.

It does not mean that everybody can't love everybody in. Women have got their weaknesses; men have got their weaknesses. We have to rather go against those. We have to conquer over those weaknesses. The scriptures are telling what are the weaknesses of women not to slur women, but to warn women “These are your weaknesses, now transcend them.”

It says what are the weakness of men to warn men these are your weaknesses, now you transcend them. Because the devotee is supposed to be transcendental to the bodily consciousness, “Prabhu, I am not this body”, that we have to act on the spiritual level. Our relationship is we are all devotees. Vāsudeva-kuṭumbakam We are all serving Kṛṣṇa and we want the whole world to be united like that. We wanna show people it works.

Everybody says universal brotherhood, but in practice people are not able to associate like that and cross over the…, materially it' s very difficult for people to get together on that kind of level. They are trying bussing people in from one neighbourhood to the other. They all, it has limited success. The Kṛṣṇa consciousness we are able to achieve because we have a philosophy, but to make it work we have to practice it. So that was what the difference was with Prahlāda. He had a philosophy and he practiced it. And therefore in the Bhagavad gita it says that what is the secret for victory? Kṛṣṇa says of victory I am morality. If we follow our spiritual ethics, if we follow our principles given to us by Śrīla Prabhupāda, that's the highest morality, and that will always produce victory. Victory by cheating is very temporary, the next time you will get exposed and it won't fit, it will fail.

But victory by morality, by following the principles given to us by guru, by Caitanya Mahāprabhu, that is giving us permanent victory. So just like it takes two to tango, it takes two hands to clap, there is a saying that one hand can never make a clap and somebody has to do. Whenever there is disagreement, it always takes two people. One person is so super humble. Just like Lord Caitanya put Himself in such a situation that even Prakāśānanda Sarasvatī wanted to pick a fight. He couldn't find, he couldn't get a grip, couldn't get a handle. Lord Caitanya was too humble.

So he slipped out of any, he didn't give any reason for them to be agitated. So we have to all be so expert like Caitanya Mahāprabhu not to create any reason for people to be agitated. And if somebody has a hellish mentality that's their own karma. Why should we come down at the same level? So Prabhupāda really wanted that, this, society would show that Universal Brotherhood but on the spiritual platform, and to make it work we have to all be Kṛṣṇa conscious.

We have to all be very careful. Just like now every time the politicians say something, you got millions of media people, they are with tape recorders and sometimes somebody makes a off the mark, ethnic slur and then somebody tapes it, next thing is on the headlines. Senator, so and so, said this or President Truman said that so many, So, there is a lot of pressure although they probably have all kinds of racial prejudices and everything, but because they are in the public eye, they have to be very careful. We are… we have you know; we may not have a number of media people trying to record everything we say, but we have the devas watching everything we are doing. We have Yamarāja hearing everything we say, we have Viṣṇu, Kṛṣṇa in our heart watching everything we are doing. They are all keeping score. When do we say something that's not Kṛṣṇa conscious? When do we say something that's not helpful for someone else's Kṛṣṇa consciousness? When is… something that is material?

If we want to get back to Godhead in this lifetime, we have to watch every word we speak, every thought we think, every action we do. They just got the the newspapers to watch out. We have Kṛṣṇa monitoring every thought we are making and seeing that are we ready to go back to Godhead? Or do we need to spin around a few more births to get purified? Maybe take birth in another ethnic family, transcend our attachments or whatever it may be.

Whatever we think of at the time of death… what if we die thinking of something? We only want to think about Kṛṣṇa. Somebody dies thinking of being envious of some other ethnic group and he is thinking of that ethnic group, they take birth in that group, that's karma. So all these kind of childish things which we consider childish in terms of the great philosophy of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, they have to be very meticulously avoided. And we have to promote actually how to be real better brothers and sisters, better uncles and nephews or whatever, be better family members.

So that we actually, the bond between us with Kṛṣṇa in the centre is enhanced. It will naturally be enhanced if we are Kṛṣṇa conscious. Material friendship means you do, you rub my back and I rub your back. But a real friend in Kṛṣṇa conscious he sees someone is off, he makes up, “Prabhu, I am very concerned.”

Like the story I told about the tiger. The villager warned, “Don’t go in the forest, there is a tiger that may eat you.” That's real friendship. “That's alright. You wanna go out in the forest, you have a good time.” (laughter)

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

Verified by: Sadānanda Kṛṣṇaprema dāsa