19920508 Bhagavad-gītā 6.20-23

(Disclaimer: The following is a machine-generated transcript and may contain errors or inaccuracies. It will be reviewed and verified against the original audio soon.)

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on May 8, 1992 – in New Orleans, USA. The lecture begins with a reading from Bhagavad-gītā 6.20-23.

Buddhi Graham Atindriyam Vedi at Ganachayvayam Stitas Chalati Tat Young Lady Vyogam Yoga Sangeetam Translation in the stage of perfection called trance or samadhi, one’s mind is completely restrained from material mental activities by practice of yoga. This perfection is characterized by one’s ability to see the self, by the pure mind, and to relish and rejoice in the self. In that joyous state one is situated in boundless transcendental happiness realized through transcendental senses established. Thus one never departs from the truth, and upon gaining this he thinks there is no greater gain. Being situated in such a position, one is never shaken, even in the midst of greatest difficulty. This indeed is actual freedom from all miseries arising from material contact. Report by Śrīla Dopan His Divine Grace Bhaktivedanta Swami by practice of yoga one becomes gradually detached from material concepts.

This is the primary characteristic of yoga principle. And after this one becomes situated in trance or samadhi, which means that the yogī realizes the super soul through transcendental mind and intelligence without any of the misgivings of identifying the self with the super self. Yoga practice is more or less based on the principles of the Patashmasali system. Some unauthorized commentators try to identify the individual soul with the super soul, and the monists think that this is liberation, but they do not understand the real purpose of the Patanjali system of yoga. There is an acceptance of transcendental pleasure in the Patanjali system, but the manas do not accept this transcendental pleasure out of fear of jeopardizing theory of oneness. The duality of knowledge in the knower is not accepted by the non dualists. But in this verse transcendental pleasure realized to transcendental senses, the truth accepted.

And this is corroborated by Patanzo Nihuni, the famous exponent of the yoga system. The Great Saints declares in the Yoga sutras, Purusharta Sunyanam, Gunanam Pratipas. This chitti shakti, our internal potency is transcendental means material religiosity, economic development, sense gratification at the end, the attempt to become one with the supreme. This oneness with the supreme is called kaivalyam by the Manas. But according to Patanjali, this kaivalyam is an internal or transcendental potency by which the living entity becomes aware of his constitutional position. In the words of Lord Caitanya, this state of affairs is called cheto darpana marjanam or clearance of the impure mirror of the mind. This clearance is actually liberation or Bhava mahda Bhagni Nirvaparam. The theory of nirvana, also preliminary corresponds with this principle in the Bhāgavatam. This is called Sarubhena revastidi. The Bhagavad Gītā also confirms the situation in this verse.

So the very technical prayer port explaining goes on. Of course there’s a very technical prayer port which is explaining the subtleties of different interpretations of the yoga system. The yoga system given by Patanjali, which is the Eightfold yoga system starting from Hatha Yoga going up to Samadhi, definitely has realization of the super soul by the individual soul, has the experience of transcendental pleasure, has transcendental knowledge of the consciousness. But there are today some other persons who don’t really follow Patanjali, but they created their own yoga interpretation where they say everybody is God, which Mahāprabhu could never accept. According to the Vedas, GA is never under the influence of any kind of illusion. But since we have fallen under illusion, therefore we could not be God. But we are very small parts of God. We are the same in quality as the Lord.

Just like the gold and the gold ring, like this ring that Prabhupāda gave, wore this ring and this gold and the gold and a big gold mine is the same. Gold is gold, but it’s only a very small fraction, small particle of gold. And there’s tons and tons of gold there. Apparently we live in Fort Knox in America. Do we still have a large quantity of gold? I don’t know anymore. It’s on the paper, it says in gold. So there’s a lot of gold there. Hopefully our little rings also have gold. But the gold is same in quality but not in quantity. So Kṛṣṇa, our God is an unlimited potency and we can realize him because we are the same quality. Just like a human being can understand another human being.

It’s very difficult to develop a very deep relationship between a human being another species. There may be some close relation in some rare cases, but by and large it’s difficult to communicate, to create that type of intimate relationship where amongst human beings it’s possible. Similarly, a human being has got enough intelligence that through the process of Yoga they can elevate their consciousness beyond the human level to a pure transcendental state. And in that state of pure consciousness they are able to realize their oneness and their difference with God himself, with the supreme super soul. So the super soul is everywhere. We are not able to see the super soul because we have covered consciousness. When we purify the consciousness, then we can see. So the process of the Eightfold yoga system alone is very long process to cleanse the consciousness.

It’s very good for health and for purifying the mind. But it’s quite take some time to act. And it’s not possible in the cities to do it 24 hours a day, you have to go to some secluded place. Therefore, in addition to the yoga postures, it’s recommended that one should always chant mantras. Because by chanting mantras we can chant when we’re walking, when we’re resting, when we’re sitting, when we’re working, when we’re cooking, we can always chant mantra. And the mantra has the potency of cleansing our consciousness. Chetu dharpana marjana. Chetu means consciousness. Darpana means mirror. Just like you cleanse a mirror with a cloth by this mantra, it’s like wiping the mirror of the consciousness so we can see the reality that reflected in our own consciousness. We can see reality as it is.

So when that happens, then Bhava mahada vagni rvaapanam, then all the sufferings. Mahā devagni means the big forest fire of this material world, that people are suffering in the material world due to so many different disturbances and desires. And so internally, sometimes one feels like he’s on or she’s on fire. One feels on fire and going here and there, trying to get free from that burning anxiety disturbance. But by practice of yoga, one becomes peaceful by chanting the Hare Kṛṣṇa Mahatra. This is also a form called bhakti yoga, the one that’s also purifying the consciousness and getting freed from that burning forest fire of maternal nature and able to then come up to experiencing the real life of a living entity, the original eternal position of a living entity and the transcendental pleasure which is the ultimate goal of yoga.

It describes here that there are two kinds of samadhi. One is called sampragyata samadhi and the other one is called asam pragyata samadhi. When one becomes situated in a transcendental position by various philosophical researchers, he is said to have achieved some pragyata samadhi. In the unsung pragyata samadhi, there is no longer any connection with mundane pleasure. For one is then transcendental to all sorts of happiness derived from the senses. When the yogī is once situated in that transcendental position, he is never shaken from it. Unless the Yogī is able to reach this position. He is unsuccessful.

It.

So this way you read about how you can be situated in trance and one be situated in boundless transcendental happiness. There’s happiness that comes from. External causes. This happiness which comes from within, from the own nature of the self. Kṛṣṇa is Anandamaydhyasa. He himself is the source of all happiness. So if we can focus our consciousness on the absolute truth, then we can experience the unlimited spiritual happiness. I think first today that. See if anybody has any questions. If someone has questions, I can focus on your questions. Yeah,.

Well, this question, I post a devotee over the phone, but I would.

Like also your also.

Just recently I had to move in with a relative of mine and he likes to eat meat, chicken. And he insistes on me going to the store buying chicken. And I really hate to do it.

You’re a vegetarian?

Yes. And so I wanted to know, you know, how do I, you know, what is everything that I can do to protect myself against, you know, any, you know, sinful reaction?

Right?

Well, he insistes on me, you know, it’s like he will, you know, feel that I am being, I am, you know, grateful for not, you know, he figures that’s the least I can do for me, for him letting me stay at his place. So I am really caught up in a situation like that. And.

Maybe you can explain to me what your beliefs are. Eat animals and kill animal. They’re not animal. We don’t need to live by eating animals. When we kill animal, we have to take the karma for animal dying. And everybody from the person who sells the animal, who butchers it, who transports it, who buys it, who cooks it and who eats it, all the very six people in the chain, they all have to take part of the karma. So therefore, if somebody wants to eat it once, it doesn’t mind taking the karma. You know, everybody’s life, they have free will. They can do what they want with their free will. will we save on that? But that someone understands this is our particular, someone’s particular belief. Actually we like it if the person didn’t eat meat also.

But if they want to eat, what can we say? We’re very grateful for whatever they might be doing to help you. But then you could say at least anything else. But don’t entertain here this one, Maybe you can convince him be vegetarian. Or better yet, just bring him the chicken and give him the chicken and say you kill it. You want to eat a chicken? Here’s a live chicken. Now you kill it. He will do that.

I am not.

Doing anything. She killed it. Oh, God. A lot of people won’t do it. A lot of people, you know, they always show the pictures of the happy cows and the happy chickens that they’re like, enjoying. This was as a fireman in Mississippi there. The cows, you know, we never saw. You know, we never let the cows go for slaughter or anything. We protect them and the milk is so much richer. And it’s. I mean, the cow actually is giving with a full motherly love. If you buy the regular milk, you can’t taste. Water doesn’t have the same texture or taste to it. It’s actually in the Vedas. The cow is like one of our mothers who would drink of milk. You drink the milk of your mother, you drink the milk of the cow.

That co. How Melt is very good for intelligence, for understanding spiritual subject matter. It’s difficult for people who eat a lot of meat to understand spiritual matters. From spiritual matters. Where melt makes the finer intelligence. Children stand spiritual method. So malk is apart from you human society. Also for a vegetarian, it doesn’t have. You don’t cause the harm to the cow. At the same time, you get needed animal fat or animal protein things without harming.

Anyone.

It’s like a perfect arrangement made by Kṛṣṇa. That’s why it’s recommended for advancing in spiritual life. It’s very important to have a good association. If we don’t have a good association, if we have to live with people who are not similarly spiritually minded, then it’s very difficult to progress because they will pull us, they will force us into various predicaments, various situations we really don’t want to do. But it’s like by their presence, they end up doing it. Just like someone may not be a thief, but if all his friends are thieves, then he’s gonna start eating, well, let’s go, let’s steal something.

And then, you know, I am sure, you know, I read your accounts now, like when the riots happened, some people, you know, they weren’t normal when they saw everybody else was writing and then they just came over and said, let me take my TV set too. Let me, you know, steal something. And they all just kind of get in the mood of robbing and looting where before they were just kind of walking on the street, didn’t think about it. So that kind of mob situation is just another example of association. Everybody goes into a particular mood and draws you into it. So if you have good association, if you associate with people who are interested in spiritual life. People are practicing yoga where people are practicing Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Then it’s very easy to also be Kṛṣṇa conscious.

That’s why Bhagavad made the society for Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So that like minded spiritual. The interested people could have a place to gather together to practice their transcendental practices. Yoga and Chandra Kṛṣṇa discuss about spiritual life. Just to facilitate this. It is very important that we have. We’re social association. We’re social animals. We need good association. Any other spiritual questions? This depot system that you’re speaking about sounds very difficult. Is it actually possible in this day and age for someone to actually attain form of life by just practicing that? To go through all the eight steps. The first step is Hatha Yoga, the asanas. And then the next step is the various steps laying into to rules and regulations, controlling the breathing, Pranayama, going into deep meditation and then finally into Samadhi like that, step by step.

That requires a kind of concentration and environment which is difficult. It’s just a place to do such a type of meditation. Like what Buddha he meditated for six years nonstop and there six years day and night non stop. And he achieved nirvana. To actually achieve self realization or some kind of realization using the yoga system. It’s a day and night kind of a full dedication for most people. They’re not that interested or it’s not feasible for them to give up all their work. Were you going to live in the before you see the forest would have like dairies and things. You could just kind of live in the forest now the forests are kind of all oaks and pines and different things that are not so easy to live. The forests here are not as pious I think as forest. I don’t know.

Of course maybe they are going inside. I saw them out of these. They call them bushberries. There are a few berries and things you probably do. I don’t know how many crocodiles. Generally for people today it’s not very to go to use that system to reach the self realization is not so feasible. Regular person could do it with anyone. Although it can help one to learn the techniques of meditation. To be able to concentrate this to mind. It has many good aspects to it. So in the past people would learn various types of yoga. And even to perform that yoga successfully, it was recommended to also practice Bhakti yoga. Bhakti Yoga is common for all the yoga system. So there’s Bhakti mixed with Hatha Yoga and Bhakti mixed with Jñāna Yoga and Bhakti devotion is always there.

But Bhakti itself doesn’t need to be mixed. It can practice just purely Bhakti. And Bhakti is like the fuel or the with that which is propelling us forward. Bhakti Yoga is especially recommended. That’s why even if people practice other forms of yoga like in Amaniya, Bhagavotis practice the Hatha Yoga for more for like the concentration or for physical well being rather than as the main stay of their self realization. They use it more as a supporting practice. And of course they chant every day the mantra of Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa. And they do all their activities as offering to Kṛṣṇa. So that’s possible to do in city, in the house, as a married person, a single anyone can practice Bhakti Yoga. But it’s more the yoga of intelligence.

Instead of physically isolating oneself and going deep into oneself through a very deep meditation, is using the intelligence and intellectually connecting. Everything we do with the super soul. And all of our acts are all of our purpose of doing anything should be offered to him, offered to the super soul as an act of devotion. So when we cook, we offer that this is in the beginning, that this is being cooked for the pleasure of the Lord. Tad sad. We cook, we offer to the deity or offer through mantras to the supersong and take the remnants. So everything that we do is a sacrifice. Karmana, Yagyard, karmano, anyattha, loko, yam, karma, lamdana. Everything we do that’s offered as a sacrifice to the super soul, that is a cause of liberation.

And anything that we don’t do as an act of sacrifice, then it becomes a cause of bondage in the material world. Karma Bandhana. Bandhana means to be bound. In other words, for every action there is a reaction. So everything in the material world we do, we have to take the reaction for that. But if we do something as a yogic sacrifice for the pleasure of the super soul, then there’s no reaction. So it’s the art of working in love. We work in love for Kṛṣṇa. So the devotees are always situated in love. What could better? We love Kṛṣṇa for all the things he is doing for us, for his beauty, his personal kindness, his wonderful unlimited qualities. And we want to serve him. And this way all of our acts are offered to him. So there’s no reaction for that.

Instead we get spiritual realization. So although the differing devoted Bhakti yogis are working in a material world that nobody can see, maybe not be able to easily see a difference. But because their acts are being offered as a sacrifice for the pleasure of Kṛṣṇa, therefore there’s no reaction. Kṛṣṇa takes the reaction where ordinary non yogis, when they act, they don’t know the higher laws of karma and so they’re bound by the laws of karma. Is that what you wanted to enough. Still sounds very difficult. Which one?

Eight.

Usually people only do the first one on the list. Do the asana clearing open the chakra to the other seven. Required a lot of dedication. It’s not practical and it’s to do the other seven practices. Hatha Yoga one can do, but the other seven, you can’t really go beyond Hatha Yoga unless you fully absorb yourself into it. So by definition that means like relocating into some secluded place. And even then, even if you go, your mind will come back again to the city. There was one yogī, he was doing the Eightfold system in the forest. He was doing on leaves and berries. And he came to see to the city where Lord Caitandra was staying, the city of Navaji. And he went to see the great devotee.

(Side B of the Cassette)

It. And he asked me if I could see the kīrtana of what Chaitanya could I join? And he said, well, it’s only for devotees and they’re a yogī, so I don’t think it’s possible. He said, I am a Ramachari. I am doing yoga for so long in the forest. He was wearing just some beer skin and some bark things, hairless matter, very austere personality as a water pot of the king. He said, well, you can stay in my house and you can look, but don’t. I think that’s most what you do at this point without asking Voichitanya. So then Voichtanya, the other devotees came and they started to chant kīrtana with the drums and the cartels, the cymbals. And everyone started to dance in this way. By dancing, this is also opening completely all of the chakras. It’s completely uniting one with transcendental vibration.

So normally Voichikandi would go into a very deep ecstasy right away. But after about 15 minutes of chanting, he said, I am not feeling any ecstasy today. Why is that? Which of you persons are responsible? So then all of the bodies start thinking, my goodness, what did I do? Lord Chaitanya is not feeling ecstasy today. Maybe what did I do wrong? So everyone started feeling guilty, looking at each other. So finally Śrīvas, he said, well, I think you know, it’s because I have one yogī, Brahmachari, who came from the Himalayas. He’s here in my house looking through the window at the trip times. So the Lord Chaitanya asked him to come out. Misadai came out with his dick and his matted hair. And he was wearing the bark and the skin. He’s young, little beard, wasn’t meditating for some time, couldn’t bother to shave.

So the Lord Chaitanya looked at him and said, what do you do? What’s your practice? And explain everything. He pulled your voices too. Meditating, living on the berries and the leaves. They kind of said it with a little bit of pride. Putting on the berries and the trees, on the leaves of the trees. And Lord Chaitanya told him, it’s very nice, but you’re specifically you’re actually really proud and you’re putting out a little bit of a show to others. If you are really seriously into this process, then why did you leave the mountains and come back into the city? You want to show everybody how austere you are so people will praise you and adore you. Actually, these devotees, they’re all still yogis and they’re practicing yoga, but they don’t have any. They’re not putting on any special assumptions.

So they’re actually more detached than you are. Even though you look up here, Celestia, you’re not actually qualified to be here in the Kirkham, so you should go outside. So then he was squared outside. The door was said to be the kīrtana. Started was going on. The kīrtana was very beautifully going on inside. My yogī Brahmachari was sitting outside when he was meditating. They said, I get lonely up there. That forest, how often do you stay alone? I was coming into the town to see what’s happening and he really exposed me. And when I saw the kīrtana, though, I could see that those devotees were brilliant samadhi. I was in meditation for a long time. It took a long time to get a little spiritual pleasure.

But I could see that within a few moments of chanting, they were all getting that spiritual pleasure, much more even than what I was experiencing in the forest. So actually what I can’t understand is how the vocaitanya would seem so transcendentally beautiful. And this kīrtana, so wonderful. How was he so merciful to you? He must have known I was there. So how did he let me even see the kīrtana for 15 minutes or a half an hour? How was I so fortunate to be able to see that kīrtana even though I am not a devotee, I am just a yogī from another school. And then he started to cry, actually feeling the mercy of Lord Caitanya and how kind he was to allow him to see the kirta and how beautiful it was. And he was really desiring.

I wish I could fully absorb myself in the chanting and inside of Lord Chaitanya. He says, stop the. So where is the yogis? He’s outside now. You can bring him in now. He’s ready to join the kīrtana. So then he became one of kīrtana chanters. So Bhakti Yoga is for everyone. And even like Vishma Dev, he’s considered one of the great exponents of Bhakti Yoga. But he was also a very great Hatha yogī. When he was shot with hundreds and thousands of arrows, he could sustain his living force in his body by the power of yoga. But he just used the yoga power to keep his life in him. He was meditating on Kṛṣṇa using Bhakti Yoga. You find, just like Dhruva Maharaj, he knew the system of meditation. But he was chanting mantras.

A lot of people, their ayesham in the previous ages do both the yoga systems, but they would use the Bhakti yoga to actually achieve the highest realization and the other yoga they would use as a kind of support or method. In this particular age, it’s recommended that for our spiritual practice we can chant the mantras. Other systems are there, people have their own values. But the mantra chanting is the best method for achieving God realization. For someone knows how to sit very nicely. I used to practice Hatha yoga for a couple of years before I came to Kṛṣṇa conscious. So the first time somebody gave me a japamala, I sat in the park and for six hours I was in Padmasana Avata snow and sitting there chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, looking at one, you know, one point chanting and $6.

I chanted 32 malas of Java. The effect after six hours of Java, unbelievable. After two years of meditation, what I realized that six hours was millions of times more than the whole two years. But very few people sit down and chant for six hours of the stretch, even if they know how to sit. But if someone chants the mantra there, they can realize how much potency, how much power is in that spiritual mantra. Just chant Śrī Kṛṣṇa Chaitanya Prabhu Niksyananda Śrī Advaita Śrī and then chant Japa. Any devotee will teach him. No, what’s happening is that I am going to be here in the month of June for a long time. Between here and Hutala will be about 11 days. But because I have a. We have the Panihati festival, 5th, 6th, 7th of June and 30 echoes every first.

I have a meeting in New York. So what I have to do is go to South America first. I will finish South America to an hour and then come back. And I will be in June for about three weeks in my zone here. So from the 9th until about the 17th or so, I will be in the new Taliban. And here come here on Sunday and then the week before that, on the first or second, I will come here to New Orleans just to take care of local matters before the next week’s meeting. So this is just like I said, during this week they were giving me visa and getting the ticket and everything. So at this time I thought I’d just stop by and just touch base. But I am not going to make any until end of June.

Actually, I should have probably come last night from the farm, but they had a PTA meeting with that school there once I was There he came late. They asked me to stay for the morning class. He had some appointments. But they arrived in New York. To come over here and spend a day or so here can be records. I wouldn’t come anymore, but spend so little time. Also this winter I didn’t come because it was the first year we did a big. We camped out for seven days and all and went on the prickrama for all the circumambulation of the holy place, Māyāpur. And about 500 devotees from all over the world came. Some brought their own tents, had a ladies camp and a men’s camp.

And then went out every day, walked for about five to anywhere between five to 10 miles and went around the nine islands. And David chanting for hours, two, three hours each hand while we’re walking. And then he’d stop and have little classes and meditations and discussions about the significance of the different holy places. And then. Once he reached the place, and we had like about two, three hours, the sun kicked him. Individual meditation. Japas. When you have a group of devotees chanting together, usually we only just have this, you know, 10 minutes. But there were chanting for like two hours, three hours at a time, six days. No forms, no faxes, no any this. Just going out and chanting. So after about the third day, the devotees became so ecstatic, it was unbelievable. That means the chanting was becoming. Coming deeper and deeper.

So people are just like, they’re going. They had so much transcendental pleasure. It was just unlimited. The amount of love that was going out was like so thick. Walking and drinking liquid or something, honey. But I was very worried because this is the first time taking 500 devotees from all over the world into the Bengali villages into these holy places. I had to make little outhouses and we had to plan the whole thing. So I wanted to be sure that they didn’t forget anything. I didn’t want to take. As it was, everybody was pretty good sport and they liked roughing it. But we tried to make it as comfortable under the circumstances as possible. Like having nice tents and having a. Having a, you know, like a little fence around where everyone had a little camp with the entrance.

Otherwise, you know, anyhow, people, they all come, they want to see what’s happening. So we had a little. We had a little fence around it so that people didn’t kind of merge with us in price of this, you know, misunderstanding. We had a panel program for the local people wherever went, so there was some preaching and they could meet the devotees. So it was very nice. It was all around, I hear people talking nicely about it. So they expected that alone. A lot of people, if they want. Anybody here wants to come. My annual pilgrimage in March, February, March. Come through a couple weeks. One week camping out and bring your own tent or provide your tent with everyone. And then we stay in Māyāpur for another week of workshops and classes. There’s all kinds of workshops.

Everything from yoga for health, different yoga therapies for health and cooking, congregational preaching, things about temple management, membership program, advanced study of different shastras, philosophical research. This all is like kind of a big festival. So many. There’s four or five things going on at the same time. So you have to pick which one you want to go to. Women’s programs, men. So that’s open for anyone to the local temples that can register. Registration is just like $45. If you get the whole package, you have different types of accommodation and different types of food. If you’re on, then they don’t pay anything. If you want to take the regular, add the whole thing up. If you take the whole package. For my airport in Robin, I think it’s like 187. You just take my airport something like 185.

But this was the first time I took 500 brothers went out on this walking creek from there was a few bugs. We had to cross one river and they only had one boat and we had 500 people. So many people getting on the boat, finding the boat. Top of the boat collapsed. It’s a small river. It’s not. It’s supposed to bring five boats. Somehow they got like that. We got a few minor things. The next place we have six boats. No problem. You went. Anyone here like camping? Oh, yes. Yeah. December at Christmas time, I went to South Africa for the first time. And then we had a very big temple in Durban. We have temples in Durban, Johannesburg, Cape Town and all over. We have many Namhat kind of groups, like over 50. So now there’s one more parasite there.

So we had a radiator right on the beach. And it used to be that at that time only, like certain places would be allowed to go on the beach. But now it’s like really open. Everybody went to the beach and so they all came and we had a big pango and we gave out the feeding people. Everybody was queuing up for, you know, for South Africa, like America for South Africa. Like everybody, you know, all the different races were all lined up and getting their place with Prashanna. Actually young people there, they’re the ones, they’re fed up with the whole apartheid. There’s like the older people that are pushing, but the young people, they’re not at all. So all the young people were coming and taking Prasharam. We had a big candle that was able to hold 10,000 chairs.

Usually we would have called about 30,000 people sitting on the floor of India. But because everyone had chairs, they had these plastic chairs. So we have about 10,000 insiders and another 5,000. Around 15,000 people were watching from 11am to 11pm non stop cultural programs, little lecture, little bar, cocktailing, slideshow, multimedia drama. Just one thing after the next. A complete program going on for five days. And then on the third day there was the Rath Yātrā and must have been about 75,000 people were in the Rath Yātrā alongside the beach, Durban beach. And there was one night they had fireworks. Old City came out to watch the fireworks. The mayor came and he said that everything’s nice about your festival but I want to make one complaint that it’s not, you know, that should be bigger next year.

I hope you make it twice as big. So this is the new route of the new South Africa that everybody’s. Because ISKCON was the only organization. I don’t know, only the one. At least it was the only which. Even when it was illegal to have eight races mixed in our temple, we just broke the law. We didn’t care because that’s not our philosophy that we’re the body. Our philosophy is we’re the soul. So we had, you know, the white, black, Indian, everybody, so called colored, everybody in the same temple there. So we had, you know, we had good relations with everyone. It’s very highly political there. We had. We gave Bhagavad Gītā to Mandela, Nelson and to the Zulu king to everybody but in amongst themselves and they have their own problems. We had good relations with everybody.

So they all came to the rafiata unfortunately, because he wanted. The Zulu king wanted to come with him, by him. Then the ANC gets angry. So it’s like end up. We just settled for the mayor since he’s elected. But everybody was very positive. They asked me to come every year, but that won’t. I still want to come here in January. I may go there. They have their program just after Christmas and before New Year. I wish I could get a ticket from India. South Africa come up. That’s my first visit to South Africa. Now they’re saying they’re going to pay me the fare up front for me to come every year. I don’t know if I will be able to. I have so many opportunities for them. It was really nice to see so many people coming out and people.

I mean, literally at one point we had 10,000 people all chanting and dancing Hare Kṛṣṇa in the pandal. People really liked it. And then so many young people. I was in the question and answer booth for hours. You get about 150, 200 people around there just asking so many nice questions. And then they distributed the garlic. How many, how much prashad is distributed to free food? 25 Tons in one day. Gee, South Africa is great. I mean, it’s my first visit, but it’s a very materially opulent place, you know, just like me. And I have been in, you know, like San Diego or something. The beachfront thing, like Miami beach or something. It’s just like real modern, clean, tropical. And now that they got rid of a parasite, everybody seems materially nice and well off. So they all come together there and join the program.

It was very nice. They invited. They said they’d like to know some leading devotees from North America. This is their preach. They asked me where the mild round. I don’t know if that’s pretty short end or the end. The big field, the big field of preaching there to go and visit they want. I told him I never spent five days like that anywhere in some way. On the way I stopped in Mauritius just for a few hours. They don’t need to stop so many places now in the world. It’s a nice facility for spreading Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Here in New Orleans you have a very nice facility. We hope that people come here and use it, chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, study Bhagavad Gītā and advance in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Advance in the Yoga practice.