19920414 Question-and-Answer Session

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The following is a Question-and-Answer Session given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on April 14, 1992 – in Śrī Māyāpur, India.

What is the difference of living in the Mayan holy dam as compared to living in some other place or far away from the Holy Dharma? There’s two activities. What are the activities is to make us fall down from spiritual life. To cover our consciousness up from being conscious of Kṛṣṇa. The other activity of Māyā is to keep us in illusion. When the conditioned soul wants to forget Kṛṣṇa, wants to enjoy separate from Kṛṣṇa, then naturally. Hare Kṛṣṇa that Kṛṣṇa is the obstacle for us to enjoy separate from Kṛṣṇa. So Kṛṣṇa facilitates our desire to forget Him. My having Māyā then makes us forget Kṛṣṇa. So Māyā is everywhere in the material world. Māyā is basically situated in our own consciousness, in our intelligence, in our mind, the desire to enjoy.

If we use our senses in the service of Kṛṣṇa, then we are immunized from Māyā. Then the Mahamaya is turned into Yogamaya. Prabhupāda used the example that just like a refrigerator is run by electricity and it makes things cold, where a heater is run by electricity, but it makes things hot. But the same electricity can do opposite things. So the energy of the Lord can make us remember Kṛṣṇa or can make us forget Kṛṣṇa. We are smaller than the energy of the Lord. So that’s why we pray to Subhadrā Devī who is Yoga Māyā, to keep us in the service of Kṛṣṇa and Balaram. Her service is to keep the devotees engaged in KA’s service according to their nature, their Sampanda. So we want the mercy of Subhadrā Devī.

But if those who don’t want Subhadrā Devī, then her expansion is Badra or colleague Durga. Many, so many Bhagavad, so many different names. And she gives us. When we turn our face away from Kṛṣṇa. Then immediately Māyā comes and she grabs us and throws us down on the ground. So wherever we are, we shouldn’t look away from Kṛṣṇa. Even in the Holy Dham. Jaggar, Madhai and other people used to look away from Kṛṣṇa. It’s possible to do sinful activity in Holy Dham if we are careless or if we are conditioned. But if one wants to be Kṛṣṇa conscious and actually there is every facility in the Holy Dhamma because the Ka’s spiritual energy is here. In fact, for people who have come to the holy Dham with some material reason, very quickly the Yoga Māyā tries to get rid of them or sidelines it.

So if we are in the Dham, there’s so many. You’re naturally reminded of Lord Caitanya, Lord Kṛṣṇa. We can do so many services very easily. Where? In other places you mentioned, like America or London. There things have been organized to remind us of Māyā. Now India has also become very advanced with all their cinema posters and other type of hoarding. There are also in the cities and India, you can also easily forget Kṛṣṇa and simply remember so much material thanksgiving activities. So of course we are in the holy dove to try to keep that pure purity so the people can remember Kṛṣṇa easier. And by nature at the Dhamma, it’s easier to remember Kṛṣṇa. So in this environment, it’s easier to be free of Māyā. But still one has to be careful. One has to try to do so very same ceremony.

The big topic, because someone doing service in the town, they burn up many offenses. Where in other places they accumulate the way people come from all over the world to come to the holy town is to burn out their offenses again. The Prophet is going to get thousand times more benefit by serving in the holy Dhum. One year he went around and saw everybody was sleeping in their rooms. And then he said, what does the user come into the holy dam? They’re all sleeping, the Prophet said. Then he said, look, we’re getting thousand times more to benefit. But if you’re doing zero service, what is thousand times zero? If you’re coming to the RPs and coming to the kirk cars and you’re doing lot of service, you get thousand times.

If you come and sleep in your room, eat too much and then you get belly ached and you sleep all day, then what will be the benefit? So he said the best thing for stomach ache is you should all go and look here down and do some work. Because by doing a lot of activity, you get good appetite, you can digest the stone. The cure for diarrhea is not simply laying down day after day, but doing the do some activity and develop an afterthe. So from that practical lesson, we could understand that when we come to the Daam, we want to do a lot of service. Whether it’s reading or chanting or whether it’s serving for shalom or whatever. Maybe what you should do is give this mic to him. He’s translating in. Does Māyā.

As a personality attack each devotee? Or we usually hear the material energy acting in the form of Kala on every living entity.

So one sense.

If it is Kala, then it’s said to be the impersonal representation of Paramatra.

So.

How do we understand this? Whether it is the personality of Māyā.

Or the impersonal force of Kala or the time factor. Is explained to be that different from Kṛṣṇa. As you said, it’s impersonal external manifestation of Kṛṣṇa. So the time factor has got his own specific rule. The time factor is what makes everything the past, present and future in the material world. What makes us all have the understanding of the various time sequences. And that’s what is the basic,.

The.

Basis for all the three modes and other things to act because of the time factor. So things are always changing in the material world. That’s why this change creates birth, death, old age, disease. The change is creating the destruction and the mode of goodness and the creation, the mode of passion for the maintenance and for the goodness. So everything is the underlying factor that has things work is the time factor. But what does it say in scripture that sets a time factor is the cause of our fall down or keeping us in illusion. Time factor is the cause for the things in the material world to function in a particular way. But the reason why we’re in the material world is because we have an enjoying attitude. We want to enjoy separately from Kṛṣṇa.

If we decide we want to serve Kṛṣṇa, the same activity which for all practical purposes, from an external point of view, appears to be like an ordinary material activity. Just like eating, everybody is eating, whether devotee or whether non devotee. But the devotee is eating Kṛṣṇa prasad. So Kṛṣṇa Prashad is spiritual because it’s been offered to Kṛṣṇa and he has spiritualized, given its spiritual nature. But whether you eat prasadam or whether you eat bhoga externally, apparently the same process of digestion, evacuation, everything is going on. But the difference is that when you take prasadam, the soul is enlivened, the mind and the senses are purified. We take ordinary food. That doesn’t happen. So time factor is going on in its own way.

But whether or not we are enjoying in the material world or whether we are in a serving mood, that is the individual thing. In the same room here there are so many people. Someone may be in an enjoying mood, someone may be in a serving mood. Just for every individual to decide. We’re all under the same time factor of taking Prashad and waiting for Saitijiyas and walking down to the river and maybe taking a swim. So on we take the swayam also, because this was also authorized by Voercheikamiya. He used to do dhala healing, used to do water sports, swimming in the water. We find in Chaitanya cherry Dharamida. Sometimes he was splashing water with sarvo boma bharatarya or splashing with a gyananda.

He would go and bathe in the ocean of the heaven and Purī, he would also bathe in the Ganges here in Māyāpur Delangi. So in this way, Prabhupāda has explained that among the Vaishnavas, swimming is one of the Vaishnava sports. Another one is wrestling. Kṛṣṇa used to wrestle in Vrindavan with a cow hurt boy. Of course, wrestling is mainly for the Brahmachari, but swimming is one universal. Any other questions someone has mentioned in Bhāgavatam, in personification of different qualities, mercy, truthfulness, dharma, adharma, etc. Means when a person has such qualities, does it mean that the person is controlled by these presiding deities? If so, does it hold good for devotees also? Are they also controlled even when they develop spiritually, What you call philosophical speculation, A PhD here, The last part. If so, does it hold good for devotees?

Are they also control even when they develop spiritually? As an example of philosophical speculation, Try to figure something out. And then in trying to figure it out, they may come up with various theory. There are many details given in the Veda and many questions and answers are given. So we find that most of the quite conceivable questions there is the answer somewhere in the native, if someone knows the Natus enough to be able to locate it. Now we have a Dovat folio where all of Daraba’s recorded work have been put in a computer program. And one can look up any word or combination of words as key and then find where to talk or say something about that anywhere in his lectures, books, Darshan or morning walks and so on. Unfortunately, in the Vedas.

So far this kind of an extensive computer program hasn’t been developed. But the six Goswamis, they have researched the Vedas and picked out the essential things that we need to know and put these in the Sikhsangbarvas and the Bhakti Goswamija Sindhu and other works of the Goswam. Given all these works, we have not yet, of course Prabhupāda gave us a Bhakti, let us not read a Sindhu. And I was first impressed when he asked some leading disciples to translate the six Sandharvas of Jīva Goswami, saying that all essential spiritual questions, philosophical questions are answered in the Śiva Goswami Sikhsan Dharmas. And if anyone reads that, then all of them, any philosophically oriented person will have enough intelligence to understand what’s being said. They cannot fail but be convinced by the Veda Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Unfortunately, we don’t have all of these that are fingertips.

Most of them are Sanskrit manuscripts. When they were Gwang and Malkobi, we saw that of Sanskrit. How the Sista Advaita Sampradāya is very carefully preserving all their manuscripts and all of these works that inspired me that we should be doing something for our own disciples succession. And I don’t see anyone really doing that. Maybe ISKCON has to do it. These are the kinds of things that a research scholar could try to live a word are all the different explanations about the personified Vedas or Karma and these personalities are mentioned in the Veda. There are personalities which are the personification of a particular Veda, but in my own reading, I don’t remember any specific in depth commentary upon their own nature. So when Kṛṣṇa leaves this world is accompanied by Dharma, by Vairagya, by all these qualities.

So that there is some form of predominating deity or some form of personification of these qualities. And these come with the Lord or be with the Lord. But specifically whether there’s any detail, just like last night we made the Kali play because Kali as a personality has been described in the Bhāgavatam, as well as Dharma and Mother Earth, many other personalities are described. So these personalities haven’t really been described anywhere that I have come across as such. Controlling the devotees or so on what their actual relationship is. One of the austerities we have to do in devotional service is if we don’t know something, we have to control our minds and speculating. We come up with a lot of different ideas what it could be. But since these are called Achintya Tattvas, these are beyond our own mental power to understand.

So just like we have 18,000 births Bhāgavatam, but in the spiritual, in the heavenly planet, we heard they have 200,000. So so many more pastimes and so many more details are given about all these different factors. So it’s kind of. We have a reader’s digest type of condensed version of the Bhāgavatam, which is about the limit of our brain power. Even now I ask so many devotees, have they read the Bhāgavatam? And most of the devotees haven’t read the Bhāgavatam. Even I ask, have you read the Bhagavad Gītā? And surprisingly enough, quite a few devotees have not fully read the Gītā, or maybe only one. What does this think of? Many, many times. So we’re not. We’re given about as much as we can normally take. But if somebody wants to, no more. Of course, sometimes in Different Purāṇas, you can get more details.

Just like Rādhārāṇī is not mentioned in the Bhāgavatam, but she’s mentioned by name in Padma Purāṇa. Sometimes people say, well, Rādhārāṇī is not mentioned the Bhāgavatam. So why are you worshipping Rādhā? Because Sukhadeva Goswami respected Rādhārāṇī so much that he didn’t mention her name directly, but obliquely or indirectly he mentioned her name by saying, was it the Sarvaratha? I forget that there’s one Gopī who was best able to worship Kṛṣṇa. So the word is used. So within Aradhya, which means worship Rādhā is there Nama form. So that is the reference, the direct reference to Rādhārāṇī within the Pasma Purāṇa directly mentions by name that there is, and her name is Rādhārāṇī and the person who narrated the Vhad. It may also be more of the Veda, some more details about Doya or Dharma or the Persona 5 Vedas.

Because Persona 5 Vedas have appeared in several places where the personified Vedas come and they offer glories to Kṛṣṇa or to Lord Chaitamya, offer their prayer. But in all honesty, since I have only studied Bhāgavatam, Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, Chaitanya, Charavamita and Bhagavad Gītā and mainly Bhagavad’s books or some of the books of my Lord Chaitanya Muhammad, I haven’t come across great depth any further description among these personalities like that. One could come across unlimited details in the data and to puzzle the mind. But the best solution for that, if one really wants to know, to research the data more, you find it in some Savhica or some Pancharatra. One of the hundred made Pancharatras is something that may be more mentioned as we know the personified Veda, that particular Veda has a particular point of view, a particular mood, a particular presentation.

So the Vedas has been satisfied by personality. How abortion can be personified. It’s another kind of inconceivable thing. How the Ganges. We see a river. How is the Ganges also? A person like this we can get a lot of doubt. But those who have the vision to see, they have seen the Ganges as a personality, as a deity. They have seen the Prasada side Veda. So they exist just like the at least 40 devatas and 3,300 million demigods. We don’t know what every one of them does. We know what a few of the principal ones basically do. We don’t know how they do it. Instead we’d be a Hijra or a Varuna or a Vayu Dev or Agni Dev or Self. They had God. Just like sometimes we may not know how the prime minister is running his government.

Sometimes we think even he doesn’t know. So when Brahma he creates, we find that actually that intelligence to do the creation is given by Kṛṣṇa. So within the 10th creation of Brahma there are various type of higher entities. But these specific personalities like Doya, we don’t find them specifically mentioned as one of the creations of Lord Brahma. And they leave the world when Kṛṣṇa leaves the world. So if they can leave the world, that means that they are out of this material world. That means they are directly from energy of Kṛṣṇa. This is also of course a kind of mental, you can say philosophers of speculation. But then based upon. You have to base it upon some kind of evidence. David cannot leave the material world.

If Dharma and Jñāna and Vairagya left with Kṛṣṇa, then they must not be Velas, they must be something higher. Like this you can indirectly also get other realization. These are expansions of Kṛṣṇa, quality of mercy, quality of spiritual knowledge. But whoever Kṛṣṇa, all the good qualities are there. So if you want to know these qualities, we have to know Kṛṣṇa. It’s not that somebody without Kṛṣṇa consciousness can get all these good qualities. Like Ravana, he had so many good qualities. Kaṁsa had so many good qualities of haggling. But as soon as they went against their own sense gratification, they could do anything. They forgot every good quality they have. So that showed that their good qualities were very superficial. They were not really a good quality. But the devotee, because they have Kṛṣṇa along with Kṛṣṇa, all these qualities are there.

So we put ourselves under the protection of Kṛṣṇa. And under Ka’s protection, then all the good qualities take shelter. Kṛṣṇa, one of his names are called Gunatham. The residents of all good qualities, Indiranda is also called Nithai Gunamoni and he is a jewel of good quality. So by worshipping the Lord, the devotee automatically gets all kinds of good qualities. And then we can realize what these qualities actually are. So the devotee put themselves under the shelter of Kṛṣṇa. And as such all the good qualities are there. And the non devotees, because they’re not under the protection of Kṛṣṇa. Therefore, even if it appears that they have some good quality, but it’s not actually a permanent situation. The sister Assad. That’s about the extent I can say on this question.

And they say this could Be we’re interested in life where we want to have a spiritual university. Some of our PhDs may be able to help in developing this university and we can research. In fact, now, with this computerized age, there’s no reason why all the data couldn’t be put into that kind of a full legal system. And we could immediately do a search everywhere where it says Dharma, all the stamps and braces and whatever major work. But it could be done. Some of these things are also inconceivable. On the bottom line, we want to put ourselves under Shiv Kṛṣṇa shelter and then we get all the good qualities back. You can see that good qualities independent of Kṛṣṇa. This is the material they try to see Lakshmi independent from Narayan. So that Gui Lakshmi is Cham Chala.

He doesn’t stay fixed anywhere by letting you. We have Nārāyaṇa. She’s always fixed on the chest of Nārāyaṇa. How many of you have seen Balaji, Bibi and Tirupati? So there on the chest, the Balaji, there’s Lakshmi Devī. She doesn’t go anywhere. She’s always on his chest. You want Lakshmi in a fixed way. If you have to serve Narayan, you want the good quality to serve Narayan. Who serves Sir Kṛṣṇa? Any other question?

Is human life considered to be more conducive for spiritual life than the higher.

Forms of life, other higher forms of life? Why is the human form of life considered better or more suitable for spiritual life and higher form? In a very simple way, Bhagavad explained that in the hellish planet, people are suffering so much that they’re so miserable that they’re not able to focus themselves in spiritual life. People in a higher planetary system, They are don’t touch the wires. They are so engaged in sense gratification that they are not able to concentrate on devotional service here in human form of life. Although we are definitely much less than higher planetary system. But it’s to our advantage that in the material world there’s not so much happiness. There’s not so much suffering. There’s a balance. There’s enough suffering that we don’t get too intoxicated by the happiness. And there’s enough happiness that we can tolerate whatever suffering there is.

So therefore we can practice spiritual life here quite effectively. When the Devas came and prayed the Lord Chaitanya when he was in the womb of Mother Satchi at that time, they also prayed to him for his blessing that he was coming to deliver all the fallen souls. But we are coming from the higher planetary system, from Swarga and We are praying to you for your blessing that we can get the mercy. We don’t want material mercy because in the heavenly planet there’s so much sense gratification. We don’t need any more material happiness. Actually we don’t have any material power. If any kind of problem is there’s just two. The one problem is that we can. Sometimes become attacked by the Asuras and therefore we have to fight for our life.

So for that reason we have to be prepared to defend ourselves from the attacks of the Asura. Otherwise apart from when they were attacking, we’re very comfortable. The other problem is that because there’s so much sense gratification we forget to be fixed in your devotional service. Because we forget to be fixed in your devotional service. We just get engrossed in the Sanskrit and the this is the worst suffering of all to be deprived of your transcendental love. That’s why we come here to beg you to don’t forget us, your devotees from the heavenly planet. Somehow we turn our face away from you and we get caught up by Māyā. And we want this time to be fully engaged in your devotional service to get your love of Kṛṣṇa. That kind of exemplifies what the problem is in the heavenly planet.

Of course they can also be Kṛṣṇa conscious there. And this, you know, it’s like rich people sometimes get so proud that they think, well, I don’t need Kṛṣṇa, I got everything. Actually for them, if they want to be Kṛṣṇa conscious, it’s very easy, they have no problem. But nature of Māyā is that when the enjoyment is there, you don’t think so much about self realization. When actually when people are suffering, when they’re in trouble, that’s when more people go to the temple and pray to the Lord for a blessing. When somebody wins a lottery ticket. How many people think I should give this to the church for the temple they take all the things they want to buy, all the enjoyments they want to have. But if they want to, they can give the Kṛṣṇa also.

So in heavenly planets they have more facility, but they also have more facility for enjoyment. So that’s their handicap. That’s why they also like to take part here. Especially in Lord Chitramya’s pastime. They live so many hundreds of thousands of years that it’s a long time to stay fixed in anything. We just live a hundred years. This fifty years, seventy years in this short lifetime. If we can be focused in Kṛṣṇa then we get the same benefit. We can go back to home, back to Garden. It. One last question before we go out to the boat. Another first chance assembled out.

Solemnly promise not to indulge in gambling. But the state government is sending lottery lot was. And if I want to get a certificate or something, I must take a lottery ticket, for example, from the village office.

Get a what?

Lottery. Lottery tickets. State government, they say that you have.

To buy a lottery.

State governments are running lotteries. And if I want to get something, a certificate or so from some office, I must take one or two or three lottery tickets. will it be of our offense?

What do you do with the ticket? What do you do with the ticket? To get a certificate we have to buy the ticket. What you do is.

Yeah, you just have to show.

You keep it.

You keep the ticket?

Yeah.

Then if I get the price,.

You can put the lottery ticket in your tsunami bag. If the deity wears the mask, goes to the deity. Sometimes. Now everything is so complex. Hard to find anything pure. Just like in. There was one family. There was a joint family. Five brothers and they had a grocery store. One brother became devotee. He was very worried in the grocery store. They were selling whiskey or something. He was concerned what to do. It was a joint business. He couldn’t pull out at the same time, he didn’t want to. And the other brothers were not selfishly conscious. So then Ta’ Albat told he can either you don’t take any share from their profit from the whiskey, whatever sale or otherwise. If you cannot divide it like that, whatever the profit that comes from that is, you don’t take any of it for yourself.

You just give it to Kṛṣṇa, since you don’t have any choice. But you also don’t want to take any part in the sick. So that’s like sometimes you have to make a compromise. Not that if all the brothers were agreeable, you want to do that type of business is to give money to Kṛṣṇa. Sometimes you have to do some compromise because of the way that the material world is organized. It’s not always exactly the way we want it. It’s not completely conducive for Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Where they force you to buy a lottery ticket, then what to do? Since it’s out of your choice, you can either offer that to Kṛṣṇa if anything comes. So that way what the problem with the gambling is then it agītātes our minds. We get attached to the idea that I can get something free without working.

And then we start thinking. Our heart becomes with that desire. I may get the 12 million rupee bumper or the double bumper, you know, one and a half kurtisaka, this and that. So our mind becomes agītāted and we can’t remember Kṛṣṇa so nicely. So that way if we just start offering that. Okay, I am forced to do this. But if there’s anything Tama, I just use it for Kṛṣṇa. Then that way our mind can be free. We don’t be agītāted. Anyway, Kṛṣṇa gives something and Kṛṣṇa. I will use it for Kṛṣṇa. So now we’re going to go to the river.