19960106 Bhagavad-gītā 18.68

Bhagavad-gītā 18.68

Type Of Talk:

Evening Class

Date:

Saturday, January 6, 1996

Collection:

Enlightenment 7

Audio player:

19960106_Bhagavad-Gita.18.68_Lecister_UK

The following is a class given by His Holiness Jayapataka Swami on October 6, 1996 in Lecister in the United Kingdom. The class begins with a reading from the Bhagavat Gita, 18th chapter, 68 verse. ya idaṁ paramaṁ guhyaṁ mad-bhakteṣv abhidhāsyati Translation with repetition: For one who explains this supreme secret to the devotees, pure devotional service is guaranteed, and at the end he will come back to Me. Translation with repetition: JPS: For one who explains Devotees: For one who explains JPS: this supreme secret Devotees: this supreme secret JPS: to the devotees Devotees: to the devotees JPS: pure devotional service Devotees: pure devotional service JPS: is guaranteed Devotees: is guaranteed JPS: and at the end he will come back to Me. Devotees: and at the end he will come back to Me. na ca tasmān manuṣyeṣu kaścin me priya-kṛttamaḥ bhavitā na ca me tasmād anyaḥ priya-taro bhuvi There is no servant in this world more dear to Me than he, nor will there ever be one more dear. Purport by Srila Prabhupada : Generally it is advised Bhagavad-gītā be discussed amongst the devotees only, for those who are not devotees who understand neither Kṛṣṇa nor Bhagavad-gītā. Those who do not accept Kṛṣṇa as He is and Bhagavad-gītā as it is should not try to explain Bhagavad-gītā whimsically and become offenders. Bhagavad-gītā should be explained to persons who are ready to accept Kṛṣṇa as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. It is a subject matter for the devotees only and not for philosophical speculators. Anyone, however, who tries sincerely to present Bhagavad-gītā as it is will advance in devotional activities and reach devotional state of life, pure... reach the pure devotional state of life. As a result of such pure devotion, he is sure to go back home, back to Godhead. Thus ends the Bhaktivedanta translation and purport to text 68 and 69 of chapter 18 of the Bhagavat Gita as it is. So, explaining the secret science of Bhagavat Gita of the Bhakti Yoga is such a important service that Lord Krishna says that the one who does this pure devotional service is guaranteed, at the end he will certainly go to Krishna, there is no servant in the world more dear to Krishna than that person and nor will there ever be one more dear. So we can see how important it is to preach the glories of the Lord amongst those who are eager to hear, who want to hear the glories, preaching the science of Krishna consciousness is the very greatest gift, benediction. If not ah... like some kind of very difficult austerity that we do but it’s a great opportunity to win the favour of Lord Krishna, to act as a... an instrument in the hands of the Lord. Lord Caitanya in the Chaitanya Caritamrita, He gave the instruction that every man in the universe should accept the Krishna consciousness movement and given to others, who was studying this point, that many times in our Krishna conscious movement people think that sanyasis like me or other senior devotees, they should do all the preaching, and the congregation they will come and listen to the lectures and ah...chant and go back home and practice in their home, but actually that’s only a part of it. Every devotee needs not only to practice but to also spread the message to others. When Lord Chaitanya was touring in South India, there was a brahman in Kurma desh. You know that Kurma Desh, how many... anybody here from Andhra Pradesh In Andhra Pradesh there is place called Kurma Desh. Originally people thought that the deity there was a Siva linga, because it was a round. So they thought that anything round it is a linga but then Ramanujacharya came. Hare Krishna, very good boy. Ramanujacharya came and said, “it’s not Siva a linga because it has got legs and head” No like the... Kurma means the tortoise avatar. So tortoise is round back but then has forearms, I mean four you know... four legs and then ah... little head coming out. So it had all those symptoms and he showed that it was not the Siva, it is a the Kurma. So then ah... he took over the temple worship, they are worshipping like a linga, instead of worshipping like a Visnu deity. So Lord Caitanya went there to visit that place and ah...and the Brahmana in that place, Lord Caitanya had stayed at his house and taken a...meals, he said you know I have got relatives and I have got enough money, children, family, land, cows everything. But I don’t ah...I don’t like this material engagement, this material samsara, entanglement. I want to give up everything and just go with you. So let me go with you. Ah... Lord Caitanya told him, whatever you do you don’t say this again, never say this again. We don’t want people artificially renouncing things, prematurely and ah... making a mockery of everything. It’s my order to you that you tell the message of Krishna to everyone you meet. On my order you become ah... spiritual master and you deliver your whole ah... place, your whole land. Jare dekho tare kaho Krishna upadesh Amar ajnaye guru haiya taro ai desh. So everywhere Lord Caitanya went, He stayed in different peoples home, and He would advice them that you preach to the other... your neighbours, to your the country people, to your family, you can tell people about the message of Krishna, you practice then you tell others. And in this way, you can deliver the people. So what happened was that Lord Caitanya would tell one person and that person would tell his neighbour and then the next person and then the next person, and that person would get inspired and tell the next person. In this way it would spread one after another. So every one person would tell five, and every five they would tell another five. So from one it became five, and it became twenty five, then it became 125, and then it became 625 and my mathematics is you know... (laughter), how much I don’t know. So it kept on expanding in this way like anything, and each of the person just see what... it’s a sublime thing that Bhakti Vinod thakur explained that when this is the market place of the holy name, when we give the holy name to someone and they pay the... like pay the proper price, can’t buy with good money, you have to buy it with faith and love and devotion. You pay the price, you take your goods which is the pure holy name. The person who is giving the holy name, their own stock doesn’t diminish, rather they get a commission also on the distribution. So in this way the persons who are distributing the holy name they get a lot of mercy. So Lord Caitayna, anyone knows where Lord Caitanya was born? Only one. Anyone else? Nabadwip. Ok. In Nabadwip where was the place? The Yogapith, Mayapur, OK. You know I just came from Mayapur, in September... October, beginning of October, end of September there was a flood there, if you hear about that. So Prabhupada, he said in Caitanya Caritamrita Adi Lila that in Sridham Mayapur, there was sometimes a great flood after the rainy season. This indicates that from the birth place of Lord Caitanya the inundation of love of God should be spread all over the world. For unless the inundation of love of Godhead is spread here over entire Lecister it’s going to flood Mayapur again. (laughter) So you have to have mercy on us so that we don’t get flooded every year. Of course not only Lecister but everywhere, the whole world needs to be inundated for just before the centennial year, now we are in the centennial year, just few months ago before the centennial, there is a big message from Lord Caitanya, “now it’s time to flood” So I have some practical experience about flood. Anybody...? do you have flood here in Lecister. You can imagine that the room where we are in now is filled with 6 feet of water, what would be the experience?(laughter). In the whole... in the whole Lecister, like everything was like 6 feet of water, then where would you go? On the roof? (laughter) It would be a bit hard to move around. Woudn’t it? Even whether you liked it or not, you would get some, you would get a little bit of contact with water, wouldn’t you? So like that Lord Chaitanya’s mercy everyone, in the transcendental flood they all get swept away. So Lord Chaitanya He says that Krishna consciousness movement will inundate the entire world and drown everyone, whether one be a gentleman, a rogue or even lame, invalid or blind, you see. You see, there is any gentleman or gentlelady here, or any rogue or lame or invalid or blind, anything in between, everyone is meant to be swept away by this flood of love of Godhead. Being drowned in love of Godhead, doesn’t mean... doesn’t have the same effect as drowning in water, you don’t lose your life, but you lose the demoniac nature and you get the Godly nature. One looses the misfortune and gets the good fortune, which I think everyone likes. Sometimes people don’t know in the beginning but actually, eventually they like it. Lord Caitanya explains that ah... activities, in Antya lila it is explained by Krishna Das Kaviraj. Activities of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu are just like an ocean of nectar. Even a drop of this nectar can inundate all the three worlds. Purport: To inundate the three worlds with nectar is the purpose or the pastimes of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. To present Krishna consciousness movement is non-different from the pastimes performed by Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, when He was personally present, for the same principles are being followed, and the same actions performed without fail. So Lord Caitanya, He predicted what? Prithivite jata aache nagar aadi gram Sarvatra prachar hoive morn am. Hare Krishna (laugther) What’s the translation In every town and village of the world my name would be spread. (laughter) He knows anyway. He is very expert. So every town and village, the whole place inundated... I got this, I started reading this thing because we are in a flood, what to do? We shouldn’t know about inundation, but I got a very good idea that what it means to inundate and I got very inspired that we really have to now in the centennial here, see that ah... everyone gets inundated by Lord Chaitanya’s mercy. You know what happens when you get inundated by the spiritual mercy, what does it say? “When the five members of the panchatatva saw the entire world drown in the love of Godhead, and the seed of material enjoyment in the living entities completely destroyed, they all become exceedingly happy.” When a seed is kept in water a long time what happens? No, No, just kept in the water it doesn’t germinate. It rots. If you keep it one day in the water and take it out then it germinates. So sometimes little people they do little Krishna consciousness, they go out again in material enjoyment and then a little bit of Krishna consciousness, a little bit of enjoyment, that does not, is not the best thing for spiritual life. You want to maintain that constant minimum level of Krishna consciousness so that we are always getting the spiritual ecstasy and we don’t become so much effected by all the material things. Material attraction is such that we get attracted materially to something, we think this is going to make me happy, but later that makes us suffer. In material life happiness is the cause of suffering. Every time we go for happiness, in the end we get suffering. Even if initially there may be happiness but in the end it becomes suffering. That’s the unfortunate reality of material happiness, but spiritual bliss, spiritual happiness has no suffering. That’s why Prabhupada used to use the example, material happiness is like trying to enjoy sweat-rice with sand in it. Have you ever had sweat-rice here? Payasam? Have you ever tried Payasam with ah... 25% sand? (Laughter) What would the taste be like? (laughter) Even though you add a little bit of sand, it create whole mouth you know....you won’t be able to enjoy it. It’s said material happiness, we are trying to get some sweat taste, but with that all the sand is there. The suffering, the anxieties, the stress, the...the lamentations, the fears, you either hanker for something, when we get it we fear we are going to lose, and when we lose it then we lamenting, “Oh, I lost it.” In so many ways we get put in anxiety but with Krishna, so to bring things in balance, the more we get attached to Krishna then those things we are not so effected. Prabhodananda Saraswati said that we can live in the material world and we won’t be so much effected because Krishna consciousness breaks the fangs of the serpent of material attraction, so that... just like if you see a cobra actually you will be frightened but if you know the cobra has no teeth, no fangs, no poison, even if it puts the hood up and makes a big show, but ok but... it can’t bite me. So having our seed of...in the heart completely always flooded in spiritual happiness from devotional service we get protected from that serpent, the poison fangs taken out, therefore devotee can remain steady. Svayambhuva manu, was a very great emperor in this universe, he was the grand-father of Kapiladev, incarnation of Godhead. So Svambhuva manu, he had a lot of material opulence, being an emperor. And he was an emperor who had control over many planets, not only one planet, although that may be hard for modern people to understand, but ah... it’s said that in spite of having so much opulence and so much facility for enjoyment, Svambhuva Manu always remained Krishna consciousness. Every morning when he would wake up, there would be a whole musical group playing Krishna bhajans, he would go to the temple, he would see the deity, he will do a little seva, take some charanamrita, hear the class, and he had to go to do his Kingly duties. Kings have also a lot of duties to do, and then in the evening he will again... when he is taking rest, the band would come and play bhajans for him, so the last thing he would be remembering also is Krishna. So like this throughout the day, in the morning, in the night, he would have remembrance of Krishna. Everything he did, he did it as an offering to Krishna. So in spite of having material enjoyment, he was always, ah... transcendentally situated. He never lost his perspective. His attachment to Krishna was always stronger, stronger than his attachment to other things, even though he was living in so much opulence. Of course someone told I can’t afford a band, but nowadays the modern technology... you can just get a tape-recorder, right?, put on a Prabhuada bhajan tape or something and you can hear Prabhupada in the morning, in the night. You can chant Hare Krishna everyday, you can do service, to the... to Krishna, to Nitai-Gaur, you canchant... and you can tell others about Krishna consciousness. We can also keep a Krishna conscious environment. So Prabhupada explained that in the modern age, he doesn’t expect that the people would be able to follow the very strict austerities of other path, but even a householder in the comfort of his, her home, they can practice Krishna consciousness and they can achieve the perfection of life. If they follow in the footsteps of ah... Svambhuva Manu and keep a Krishna conscious environment. Now one thing, just keeping environment is also difficult if you are not telling other people about Krishna. When you get...tell other people then you get the special mercy from Krishna. He said that there will be no one more dear than that devotee who tells other devotees about this great secret, this great mystery, mysterious science of Bhagavat Gita. So in our Krishna conscious movement we are understanding that now the number one priority is that every ah... person in the movement, not only the temple devotees, but also the congregational devotees, everyone should become trained in Krishna consciousness nicely and should be empowered to be able to bring others to Krishna consciousness. That’s how Lord Caitanya spread the movement, Lord Nityananda... Lord Caitanya told all His followers, everyone...go out door to door. Even Lord Nityananda, He was going door to door.... “Hello”, someone comes and answers the door, “my dear sir please chant Hare Krishna, bolo Krishna bhajo Krishna, karo Krishna sikha.”Chant Hare Krishna, worship Krishna, study Krishna, was teaching. Live a holy life, chant Hare Krishna. They would ask everyone, even they asked who... Jagai and Madhai, that’s a whole other big thing. So even Lord Nityananda, what to speak of all the other brahmacharis, sukhlambar brahmachari, what to speak of the householder.

Lord Chaitanya made no distinction, “No, you a householder, you can’t do this.” They send everyone, “get out there, tell everyone, chant hare Krishna.” So they are all going door to door. Maybe nowadays you don’t need to go exactly door to door, maybe we should do it, that I am not going into the detailed strategy, but there are so many people wants even a visit from a Hare Krishna devotee. They want someone to do kirtan in the home, there maybe somebody sick, there may be somebody who is in anxiety or from a new house they are entering. So if someone would go and do kirtan they would be very happy and when we engage in those activities then that seed of material enjoyment in the heart gradually gets neutralized, then we get really peaceful. Lord Caitanya was in that Kurma desh, there was one Brahman there called ah... Vasudeva. Vasudeva was a devotee, but unfortunately Vasudeva had leprosy. You know, leprosy means that the circulation doesn’t properly go to the end of the body. So gradually your limb start to become decomposed and rotten and fall off. So he was rotting, he lost part of his hands, but he was very self-realized. He understood I am not this body, this is my karma from some previous sins... bad karma’s I had done, and ah... if I can remain Krishna conscious I will go back to Godhead in the end of this life. So this is ah... I am not the body. So he would even sometime even... because the skin was rotting and everything, flies were coming and maggots were coming there, sometimes one of the worms would fall off and he would feel bad. The poor worm you know...it’s his karma to eat me and it fell off and it’s just there rolling in the ground starving, he picked it up and put it back on, “Ok, enjoy!” We can imagine, I mean how detached he was... you know. If we get a little cut we freak out, his skin is rotting and he is not even bothered. He was a very detached person, but he wanted to see Lord Chaitanya, heard Lord Chaitanya had come and so he went to the house where Lord Caitanya was staying, he reached there about 7:15. So everyday Lord Caitanya, He would get up early in the morning, He would take His bath, do His prayers and about 7’o clock he would take off. He would go to the next place. So Lord Caitanya had left just 15 minutes before. So Vasudeva, the leper, he came and he said, “Where is Lord Caitanya?”, and they said, “I am sorry, but He is gone.” “No,No, No, He is gone, No, No, how can it be?” And he is like rolling in the ground and he is beating his head, no, no, but I wanted to see Lord Caitanya, this was the only hope in my life to see Him, Gauranga!” What did he say? Gauranga! Gauranga! Gauranga! And Lord Caitanya He immediately He came back. He just pong appeared right out of the air. Nitai Gaur Premanande, Hari Hari Bol. Because the devotee’s desire was so strong that Lord Caitanya being so merciful He just appeared there again, and Vasudeva was overwhelmed. He was paying his obeisances, he was so happy, and the Lord just picked him up and embraced him. He said, “no, no , don’t touch me, I am dirty, I am polluted, I am rotting, I am diseased, but Lord Caitanya embraced him anyway, and embracing him, Vasudeva became complete cured of his leprosy, even the fingers that had rotten off were restored to their whole condition, and he was completely restored, a complete person, the complete body was restored. So he was so detached, he was lamenting, “Oh my Lord, what have You done, now You have restored me, I am going to get all attached again to the body, and I will get entangled by material life, and Lord Caitanya said, “no, don’t worry about that, you just go on chanting “Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Ram Hare Ram Ram Ram Hare Hare”, and you will be able to overcome all this things and you will come to me in the end. So just tell everyone to chant Hare Krishna. Even in our, even in the Indian community, of course I am an Indian citizen, I live in india since 1970, that’s ah… 26 years and I have been a Indian since 1978. I am coming here on my Indian passport, I don’t have any other passport, and ah… so I can speak also ah..ah… ah… as an Indian. (laughter) Audience: You are more than an Indian. Gurumaharaj: Any way Lord Caitanya He said that, “Bharat bhumite manusya janma hoila jar, janma sarthak kari koro para upkar.” So you should also born in Bharat and take that as a bharat samskriti also so that they have specially the responsibility to perfect their life and to do to help others to perfect their life. Sarthak karo… janma sarthak karo, you perfect your own life and karo paro upkar, and uplift the other people. Of course Prabhupada said in the broader sense the bharat means the whole planet, in the more direct sense that means India or those who are Indian origin. Lord Caitanya told everyone, all human beings also to take up Krishna consciousness and give to others. So everyone has got different kinds of mandates but ah… there are many Indians who don’t know about Lord Caitanya that ….they don’t know about the sankirtan because in the past few hundred years this message has not been widely spread. In Bengal or Orissa, in a few places, few pockets of Indian, there are people who are…know about the Harinam sankirtan, but there are many who don’t know. One Gujrati girl ah… told me ah… that the first time she saw the devotees she thought they are all kind of crazy, what they are doing chanting on the street. This is not ah… anything she ever heard about but later when she was explained the whole ah… process and numbers of friends explained that , “no they are very nice ah… this is a very nice process, they are very nice people”, then she changed her opinion. So there are many people they don’t know what this Krishna conscious movement is, they don’t know what the process of bhakti yoga is, and ah… the best way for them to learn is from their own friends, from every… everyone has friends….it’s says everyone according to some mundane ah… calculations they figured out that I don’t know, this is not sastric, so I could be different, but they say that 20 every person has 22 friends on and average, friends and ah… near relatives, but some people have less, they might….and some people may have more but one an average about 22 for normal person, and little bit of ah… introvertive person might be about nine or ten, and there are somebody who are downright neurotic then they may only have three or more, one of them may be the dead cat that they are still talking to all the time. So if everybody has ah… 20 or so friends or more, there are so many people that could be given Krishna consciousness and everyone we meet they could also tell their 20 friends, and even if one of those friends takes it up….. Jay! then it would be a very wonderful thing. So that was how Lord Caitanya spread the sankirtan movement. We do have temples and we do have brahmacharis and sanyasis and some Brahmana grihastas, living in temples but Prabhupada he also said that ah… the purpose for these temples is to help the people on the neighborhood. So that I am glad to know that our temple activities are affecting good results. The boys and girls in the neighborhood coming to help the temple activities is the good result of our attempt. So the temple centre started just to present a example to the neighboring residents how they can make a small temple on each and every home. It is not necessary that hundreds and thousands of people live in our temple so that we can make effective propaganda, then the neighboring householders will be inclined to be initiated and follow the modes of temple life. Prabhupada said that ah… we want to show people how they can peacefully and happily live if they follow the routine worship method in the temple and establish this in their home, to be happy in all respect. The Krishna consciousness movement is actually attempt to make all people happy generally and become liberated in this life from material contamination, so be thus eligible to enter the kingdom of God after quitting this body. This was a letter written by Prabhupada in 1969 ah…to Tamal Krishna. So Prabhupada wanted that ah… we learn the mode of temple worship and then we establish that system in our own homes that can be not only for Indians bur for anybody. Whether someone is Chinese or English or ah… American or an Indian or African or whatever, everyone can learn this process and apply it. Then ….. there is also Advaitya Acharya, he set an example, an ideal example for householder devotees. Are there any householder devotees here? Who is the householder devotee here? Who are householders? He said he had an execution of a daily festival in his home. So if one has the proper means and wealth he should occasionally invite the devotees of Lord Caitanya and hold a festival in home simply by distributing Prasad and talking about Krishna, and holding congregational chanting for at least for three hours in the evening, and Prabhupada said that this procedure must be adopted in all centers of Krishna consciousness movement. Thus they will daily perform sankirtana yajna. There will be centers to do all this home programs, and every house holder that can be able to invite people and do a house programs. Bhaktivinod Thakur, he explained that ah… one can… in his namhatta meeting that you don’t have to make big, opulent prasadam and be simple but to invite people into the home to chant Hare Krishna, have the devotees come over and chant in the home, this purifies the whole house, and this engages all the family members in ah… in the spiritual activities. So it’s very ah… it’s a very auspicious activity. So we know that, Vrindavan was… is famous because it has 5000 temples. Did you ever hear that Vrindavan has 5000 temples? But most of the 5000 temples are in people’s homes. The seven very big temples and there may be another 50 or hundred secondary temples, of course if they are Krishna Balaram temples, but the vast majority of the 5000 temples are home temples, that means that in Leciester if you have 5000 temples you can became like a UK Vrindavan. You can become a spiritual world. This is what we are trying to do is encourage very systematically and it’s something that I can’t do, it’s not something that not even the devotee there in the temple or hindu alone, but it’s something that together everyone works and systematically we organize ourselves, then we can reach everyone. Every devotee should be seeking for the centennial, How many people can I enliven to practice Krishna consciousness in their home. For I just gave a seminar last Friday about… in the manor, a little demonstration how one centre like this could have half a dozen house programs going on in different parts of the city. I know Lecister is a big place, I know I was just driving around it for about 45 minutes trying to find out this temple. From the holiday inn to here, you know, I…we weren’t on… what’s that Edington….street, then we go into the East-West road or something, and then Saint… Saint Baurbadus (laughter) and then ah… we came around then we saw quite a bit and ah.. finally ah.. we made it somehow, and everywhere you know we asked directions and ah… of course many people… one person we asked, “Where was Hare Krishna temple?” He said, “Hare Krishna temple!”, he pointed the opposite direction. (laughter) Not everyone but then one store keeper told us the… but I don’t think that was exactly correct. Anyway eventually ah… Nitai Charan and ah… Gopi Bhakti they let us here. It’s a big place that can have just like a Sunday program here where people gather together, in the week there could be so many programs going on in people’s homes, short program’s on working that keeps people very simple, short two… two hour program or so. In this way I told this in Beuneos Aires two months ago, they got 39 programs already going on. In Melbourne they have 18 or 23 regular programs. They have a whole map shrined with different programs are. Some programs are weekly and some are forth-nightly but generally they have a once a week in a different area. They don’t give the address, people phone up, so that way they don’t give… you can scream. But one centre in a city like this could have a 100 little programs going on every… every, brining in so different people. But it started gradually, I mean over a period of time, not all of a suddenly. Even you have one group, this whole system how they can expand, so I gave a little demonstration in the Manor last night and they liked it, so they said they liked it very much but the idea is that everyone is empowered by Lord Caitanya, everyone has a mandate, we have to study Prabhupada’s books, we have to learn from the Vaisnava’s and the guru, from the… how to practice Krishna consciousness and how to give Krishna consciousness to others. So someone may be able to give a big lecture and speak to 50 or 100 or 50,000 people, but it doesn’t matter, if a person can speak to five people or one person that…that also that… that has a… equally valuable. Most people get convince not just when they hear somebody in a 50,000 or 5000 crowd or the 50 or hundred but also when they get confirmation from the people they know. That’s when they tend to take it more seriously. So both things are needed you know…. You don not need some big preacher who can speak to a big audience. You just need someone who can speak at other levels. It’s not that everybody has to be able to give a big lecture to be a preacher. Everyone can be a preacher, even little children are sometimes are most empowered preachers. You read in the Caitanya Caritamrita about children who used to preach Krishna consciousness and BhaktiVinod Thakur said that woman should also preach Krishna consciousness but to preacher you have to be convinced right? If you are not convinced you will not be able to preach very much but if you are convinced that no that this is the… this is the way that can make people happy, this is the way to lead a… a spiritual life, this is the… the good thing. And if you love people, and if you have people who really care about them, you have family members, you want to think how to give them, because you had to do it kind of tactfully and strategically, if you present too much they get…. the people get freaked out sometimes, so they they get frightened and they… they don’t know how to deal with it. So one has to learn to give it very gradually according to the persons appetite. Just like if somebody is sick, if he comes here and have a big feast, he just got over the flue, you know, if you give him a big feast probably he will get sick… more sick. It’s depending on how spiritually strong they are, some people are really sick you just feed them liquids, just caranamrita. So little bit of ah… tactfulness is ah… how to deal with different kinds of people and feed him. So anyway I am the minister of congregational preaching ah… in ISKCON. So I am very much eager to see that our congregation gets ah… activated and empowered and ah… and we see that wherever it happens wonderful things happen. There are on a campaign now for the centennial for building their congregation. The first year, two years ago I was just talking about the temple leaders and then I realized that well I can talk to them but the actual people that have to do their preaching, even more than the temple leaders are the actual ah… devotees, and even if he only have time to meet a person a week or… or to go out once a week or to get together in someone’s home once a week, and then come to the temple on the Sunday. This is a big sacrifice. Certainly it is a very big sacrifice but Krishna says that who preaches this message to the other devotees is the very most, dearmost devotee, that no one will be more dear, no one has been and no one ever will be more dear than that person, and if we are dear to Krishna then everything is perfect. I mean how powerful devotional service is we don’t even have a slightest idea, how powerful everyone of you are, you are carrying much more powerful weapons than nuclear bombs but because…what does the nuclear bomb do? it just blows the people bodies and homes and things like that but it doesn’t free them from birth and death, he has to again take birth in some other place but you are carrying the weapon of the harinam, you are carrying this weapon, of giving people prasadam, Bhagavat Gita, Harinam, you give someone that weapon, that medicine, you can completely cure them from them from the whole material disease, you can cure them from the cycle of birth and death, you can… they can have a peaceful, happy life and you free them from birth and death, so it’s much more powerful than some violent weapon, this is a weapon of love. I know I mean one Marathi was a very good devotee but her husband was bit slow and didn’t know what to do, if she said too much her husband would get angry, so she didn’t know what to do. I said just bring some prasadam from the temple, keep feeding your husband little charnamrita, even doesn’t wants prasadam just give him. So he kept feeding Prasad to the husband over about one years time, the husband started becoming automatically more favourable to Krishna consciousness and encouraging the wife and started chanting. This prasadam, the holy name, so many things, they have so much effect, we cannot imagine. So everyone one of you can give mercy out, even.. even the… you are working, give a friend a cookie as a prasadam cookie, give some friend a book, I had one disciple, he was working as a quality control ah… manager in a big factory… Whimco factory, in India they make matches, and ah… he would take 10% of his ah…salary and ah… buy books and with that he would go and ah…give a book to each member in the factory and he had a little can, say whatever you would like to give you can give a donation or not if you don’t want to you don’t have to but if you do I will use that money to buy more books to give to other people. So you get about 60-70% of the cost of the books back, with that he would buy more books. So the… in this way he gave to one whole factory 6000 workers. Even they… even the find the communist workers that were there also, they said hey why you not giving to us, he was little shy, so he gave them also, and they used to say you know Valekum Salam and he said Hare Krishna Salam. (laughter) After that he got promotion, became Director of quality control over six factories, so he started on the other factories as well. (laughter) So we don’t know but we can help people in so many ways. We may not know, we may not be able to feel like Dharma…45.00., the yamadutas….and the whole drama behind it you know but the mercy that you can give out can have such a far reaching effect, you can make a impact in the whole universe. And this is the way to become a very… in Krishna’s best book, not the good book but the best book. He said that there is no one more dear to me than the most dear book that Krishna has, you can be in that, just by giving out Krishna consciousness to others, one has to learn how to do that from people who are able to do it and in this community there are many senior devotees here who know this technique and it’s the question of organizing those who know how to speak nicel and properly they can teach about this to other ones, the newer ones to do the same thing, and one person train another, train another. So any way this is just a philosophy about the whole topic. I don’t know after that there will be any time, today after your Prasad, if you want I could explain more, even give a… some other details about some of the new techniques that ah… we fo…. I don’t know if they are new, they are probably old techniques which were newly applied in Krishna consciousness movement, the technique’s of Bhaktivinod thakur and Nityananda Prabhu, how from one centre there can be many many groups in different neighborhood ah… spreading the whole movement, empowering the devotees ah… in a very gradual way, once a week but having a bigger impact and they are doing this in now different parts of the world and just the past four months they have really put a big drive on for… for the centennial. In one place in three months, they said that already the congregation has increased by 50%. In Madras they told me that ah… they can increase ah… they can double every four months…. Three or four months they will double, the way that they are going right now. In Bengal of India we have 2000 ah… Namhatta groups with over a… hundred thousand members , just once in Bengal and North of Orissa. In Bangladesh there is about ah… three, four hundred groups already, but now we are doing all over the world, we have of course in England a big Namhatta, though…. Even with a big namhatta you can subdivide in a many smaller groups as well for penetrating and for ah… spreading out the mercy in a more dynamic way and they get many together as a big group also. You have the both benefits but anyway it is time… if not this time, in the future time we can or maybe Kripamoya Prabhu could also explain whatever you like but this is a program now we are doing to see that Lord Caitanya’s mercy gets ah… spread but the whole basis of it is what this verse of the Bhagavat Gita said, that every individual needs to give out Krishna conscious mercy and become very dear to Krishna. We are not the doer but we are just an instrument in Krishna’s hands. Lord Caitanya wants to have this done. He is going to do it but you should just be his instrument, just like Krishna used Arjuna as His instrument in the Kurukshetra battle. Everyone of you can be an instrument in Lord Caitanya’s hand, in Prabhupada’s hands to spread the Krishna conscious movement. So thank you very much. Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Any questions? Q: …49.10-19.17………..Panchatattvae became very happy to see the whole world give up the seed of material enjoyment, did it happen that the whole world give up the material enjoyment completely Gurumaharaj: Did that actually happen means? It all actually happened, and it happened. When the five members of the pancahtattva’s saw the entire world drowned in love of Godhead, drowned in love of Godhead means you are completely immersed in transcendental ecstasy of love for Godhead and the seed of material enjoyment of the living entities is completely destroyed. And you have so much happiness in love for Godhead then you are….but you don’t have to work you know like you know… usually we talk about giving a lot of things up but actually the process of Krishna consciousness is not so much of giving up but that happens but, it happens in such a natural way that actually when you get Krishna, when you actually develop your Krishna consciousness and you get the taste of love of Godhead, automatically you become detached, the seed of material enjoyment is ah… the seed of the desire to have material enjoyment gets ah… rotted out. Just like if I you keep a seed in water continuously, instead of sprouting it just rots and what happens, the material enjoyment, the desire for that makes us in anxiety. As soon as I want to desire some material enjoyment I get immediately an anxiety. If somebody wants to… wants to enjoy something material then immediately they are thinking how do I get it, what do I have to do, you are immediately in an anxiety. When you are already internally happy in the love of Godhead, then whether material enjoyment is there or not there, a person is already happy. So they can survive. So everyone became exceedingly happy. So that’s what’s happens and that’s what will happen when…as the world becomes more and more Krishna conscious, then they… they get detached from all this ah… material enjoyments which have no spiritual contact. Of course they are basic things, it might be you can avoid just like by eating you get happiness but we eat Krishna prasadam. Devotees, they want Krishna prasadam. The devotees, they have material happiness but they don’t have any desire for independent material happiness. They want the happiness of Krishna consciousness. So that desire grows by this process of bhakti yoga, and the detachment from the mundane desires automatically gets neutralized because of a higher taste. Is that all right? What’s your name? So we met before? Yes, could you repeat the quote you made again? What Krishna says in the bhagavatam, that for people who are 52.45 but they are attached to some ah… materialistic… the one way he shows mercy, is by temporarily taking those things away from the person, the person can see the temporary nature of the material world, the actual, this are not the things that one should not be so attached to and it’s said that when it happens then that person, the devotee takes full shelter of Krishna and then when Krishna sees that the devotee is ah… now matured then even He gives those things back but then the devotee is already transcended that material desire and is no longer entangled by those things. But in the eight canto of the Bhagavatam when Bali’s wife ah… mentioned to the Lord saying that this was just special mercy, this is Your top mercy You have done on my husband by taking everything away because he was getting falsely proud, and thinking he was a proprietor because he conquered over the whole universe. Then Visnu who had been sitting and listening to everybody, He… He couldn’t stay silent then, He objected and said that’s not my topmost mercy, that somebody who has got all this opulence but does not take himself as a proprietor, they don’t actually remain intoxicated by…they remain fixed in my service and….desire to serve me, you should that they have got my top most mercy. Like Svambhuva manu, he never lost everything. The loosing comes when they are really clinging on to the material things and they are not taking shelter of Krishna. You may be praying to Krishna. “Krishna I want to be your pure devotee, but we are really holding on you know…to certain things you know… and then Krishna will go, “you want to be my pure devotee, you want to take shelter of Me but you are holding on to these other things, all this material crutches and if you just depend on me then it will work.” But so how to make it work, so that one point that nothing else works, then Krishna takes away your crutches and you have to lean on Him and then after that when you have realized that how the wonderfulness of depending on Krishna, then Krirshna can give you any facility again. Prabhupada quotes that verse many times because he felt that ah… although he was not so much… so much attached in 55.00-05, actually didn’t have so much desire to leave it being a householder but when he was 56 then he kept having different dreams and at that point in his life ah… he felt that Krishna taken away a lot of things from him and that it was a mercy of Krishna to ah… compel him to fully take shelter. He would quote that ah… verse many times ah… Parasya…. What’s the… what’s I forget the full Sanskrit now. It ends Kanai. So…well I… Prabhupada… one businessman… when he was preaching and I was in Calcutta sitting in one… one man came, there are many babas and many people they show so many ah… mystical powers, magical powers, what kind of magic can you show… show me, I want to see something mystical. So then Prabhupada said, “Well I went to the West with 40 rupees, and now five years later I have got 40 crores and thousands and tens and thousands of the devotees all over the world, isn’t that ah… miraculous?” “Ah… yes, yes!” (laughter) What is the use of showing you a piece of fruit or a rasgulla or a ring or some ashes.” “No, No, Swamiji, very good.”

Sadananda Krishnaprem Das