19970917 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 7.5.5

The following is a class given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on September 17, 1997 in Bangalore, India. The class begins with a reading from the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 7^th canto, chapter 5, text 5.

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 7.5.5

śrī-prahlāda uvāca
tat sādhu manye ‘sura-varya dehināṁ
sadā samudvigna-dhiyām asad-grahāt
hitvātma-pātaṁ gṛham andha-kūpaṁ
vanaṁ gato yad dharim āśrayeta

Translation by His Divine Grace A.C. Śrī Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda:

[A-side: Where is the Kannada translation going? Someone can announce anyone else needs. It’s in the back there. Just announce it.]

Prahlāda Mahārāja replied: O best of the asuras, King of the demons, as far as I have learned from my spiritual master, any person who has accepted a temporary body and temporary household life is certainly embarrassed by anxiety because of having fallen in a dark well where there is no water but only suffering. One should give up this position and go to the forest [vana]. More clearly, one should go to Vṛndāvana, where only Kṛṣṇa consciousness is prevalent, and should thus take shelter of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Vṛndāvana dhāma kī jaya!

Purport by Śrīla Prabhupāda: Hiraṇyakaśipu thought that Prahlāda, being nothing but a small boy with no actual experience, might reply with something pleasing but nothing practical. Prahlāda Mahārāja, however, being an exalted devotee, had acquired all the qualities of education.

yasyāsti bhaktir bhagavaty akiñcanā
sarvair guṇais tatra samāsate surāḥ
harāv abhaktasya kuto mahad-guṇā
manorathenāsati dhāvato bahiḥ

“One who has unflinching devotional faith in Kṛṣṇa consistently manifests all the good qualities of Kṛṣṇa and the demigods. However, he who has no devotion to the Supreme Personality of Godhead has no good qualifications because he is engaged by mental concoction in material existence, which is the external feature of the Lord.” (SB 5.18.12) So-called educated philosophers and scientists who are simply on the mental platform cannot distinguish between what is actually sat, eternal, and what is asat, temporary. The Vedic injunction is asato mā sad gamaya: everyone should give up the platform of temporary existence and approach the eternal platform. The soul is eternal, and topics concerning the eternal soul are actually knowledge. Elsewhere it is said, apaśyatām ātma-tattvaṁ gṛheṣu gṛha-medhinām: [SB 2.1.2] those who are attached to the bodily conception of life and who thus stick to life as a gṛhastha, or householder, on the platform of material sense enjoyment, cannot see the welfare of the eternal soul. Prahlāda Mahārāja confirmed this by saying that if one wants success in life, he should immediately understand from the right sources what his self-interest is and how he should mold his life in spiritual consciousness. One should understand himself to be part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa and thus completely take shelter of His lotus feet for guaranteed spiritual success. Everyone in the material world is in the bodily conception, struggling hard for existence, life after life. Prahlāda Mahārāja therefore recommended that to stop this material condition of repeated birth and death, one should go to the forest (vana).

In the varṇāśrama system, one first becomes a brahmacārī, then a gṛhastha, a vānaprastha and finally a sannyāsī. Going to the forest means accepting vānaprastha life, which is between gṛhastha life and sannyāsa. As confirmed in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa (3.8.9), varṇāśramācāravatā puruṣeṇa paraḥ pumān viṣṇur ārādhyate: [Cc. Madhya 8.58] by accepting the institution of varṇa and āśrama, one can very easily elevate himself to the platform of worshiping Viṣṇu, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Otherwise, if one remains in the bodily conception, one must rot within this material world, and his life will be a failure. Society must have divisions of brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya and śūdra, and for spiritual advancement one must gradually develop as a brahmacārī, gṛhastha, vānaprastha and sannyāsī. Prahlāda Mahārāja recommended that his father accept vānaprastha life because as a gṛhastha he was becoming increasingly demoniac due to bodily attachment. Prahlāda recommended to his father that accepting vānaprastha life would be better than going deeper and deeper into gṛham andha-kūpam, the blind well of life as a gṛhastha. In our Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement we therefore invite all the elderly persons of the world to come to Vṛndāvana and stay there in retired life, making advancement in spiritual consciousness, Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

Harihi oṁ tat sat

Thus end the Bhaktivedanta Swami translation purport to the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, seventh canto, fifth chapter, fifth verse in the matter of “Prahlāda, the saintly son of Hiraṇyakaśipu”.

Jayapatākā Swami: So here we see Prahlāda’s wonderful spiritual intelligence. If one is engaged in devotional service, one gets all good intelligence, all good qualities. That is where unflinching devotional faith in Kṛṣṇa it says akiñcana – yasyāsti bhaktir bhagavaty akiñcanā sarvair guṇais tatra samāsate surāḥ (SB 5.18.12) – then they get all good qualities of the devatas, to get this unflinching devotional service is the secret. Unflinching faith. It’s very great thing to have faith in Kṛṣṇa. It’s not a small blessing. Because if we have this faith, we get all the good qualities. Someone comes in contact with a devotee – adau śraddhā – has a little faith. He is a good person. Then they hear from that person, and other devotees, they get some association with devotees – adau śraddhā, sat-saṅga. And that association is they decide to take up worshipping the Lord in devotional service – bhajana-kriyā, chanting japa, reading, offering their food to Kṛṣṇa, doing some sevā. In this way they get anartha-nirvṛtti, they get dirty things from the heart cleansed away. Then they can see this material world as it is. And they can achieve niṣṭha-bhakti – very fixed up devotion. From niṣṭha-bhakti, then as one goes on serving very steadily, they start to get a taste for serving, very wonderful nectarian taste. The taste will increase, then one becomes attached to the taste, that attachment to Kṛṣṇa consciousness is āsakti. Thereafter as one becomes more and more attached, then one gets bhāva or ecstatic love for Kṛṣṇa. Bhāva becomes deeper, and at some point Kṛṣṇa reveals Himself to the devotee, then the devotee gets prema or pure love.

So the Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura explained it something like refining a sugarcane. You have the sugarcane? Sugarcane is sweet. How many think, sugarcane is sweet? What is more sweet than sugar cane? The next level up is the sugarcane juice. Right? When you squeeze out the sugarcane as guys sugarcane-wala, they squeeze out the juice. Is the juice more sweet than the sugarcane? More concentrated. Then you cook down the juice. What you get? Jaggery-gūr! Gaurāṅga! You get jaggery. Then if you take the jaggery a little one step further, what you can do? No, this jaggery candy, gūr candy is there. Gūr candy, paṭali type gūr candy, you can make like they stretch it and you can eat nice... Then there’s further refining, more sweet and gūr candy is what? What can you say? What do you think? I am giving your chance. You don’t know, what is more sweet than gūr candy? Sugar. And more sweet than sugar, Sugar candy. So how many we got? Sugarcane, juice, gūr (jaggery), jaggery-candy, then we got sugar, what? A Glucose (laughter). Like that as you are refining, that’s how you have to refine your devotional service. What level do you take initiation on? Which of those eight levels? Anyone knows? Yes, on the bhajana-kriyā level, when you are practicing devotional service, then you take initiation. And under the guidance of the guru, you should get rid of all your anarthas. Sometimes when people are initiated, they think, now I made it. But that’s just the beginning. Now is the time to go further refining. When you cook up the gūr, the sugarcane juice is so much that this foam comes. I don’t know, any of you ever been in a country (side)? I live in a village, so I know how in Māyāpur, we are cooking that sugarcane juice and the foam comes. You take off the foam from the top and throw it. All the dogs are coming and eating that foam and they get all night, they become intoxicated, “Ooo!” you know. (laughter) But as that foam is going off, then the gūr becomes very clear and nice. Just like when you cook butter to make ghee, what happens? There’s some foam kind of crust comes on the top. So from our bhajana-kriyā, from our devotional service, we want to get out the anarthas, all the weeds, all material contaminations. So we have unflinching faith. Maybe we are doing devotional service, but we still have desire for fame, for name, for credit, for some kind of material benefit. By doing devotional service, I will become renowned in the world as a great person or by being a devotee, I will get more money in my shop. Some people, they come and they say, “Gurudeva, please give your blessing so that this or that material thing happens.” Actually, it’s not proper to ask the guru for material blessings. Those things come by Kṛṣṇa’s mercy automatically. What we should try to get is that which will not come by its own accord. By karmas we can get good and bad things happening, but by Kṛṣṇa’s mercy only we can get devotional service. So what happens? Manytime people, they get stuck up, one of these levels. We should know what level we are on and not get traffic jam, not get stuck up there. We are still cleaning out so many anarthas. Of course, after a certain point, even when we reach niṣṭhā or āsakti, sometimes there’s still small number of anarthas. But the main anarthas are cleaned out. Anarthas are also in very subtle ways… Mahārāja, Bhānu Mahārāja translated one book that explains more about these anarthas. I forget, what’s the book? Kādambinī or something. I am not sure anyway which book it was, but he was something by Cakravartī Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura. And it tells about all the different kinds of anarthas. That sometimes we get fired up, go for it. Then sometime, we become spaced out, no energy, no enthusiasm. “Oh, it’s so hard to chant my rounds.” So this is called hot and cold, thin and thick. Sometime our devotion gets really thick, intense, and then sometime it like thins out. Somebody watered it down. This is a kind of anartha. Any of you ever experienced that? You see, there are somebody… like that, there are so many different subtle type of anarthas, subtle type of things, we can’t fix our mind on, one point it’s a going here and there, so many points. So there’s the gross anarthas, there’s the subtle anarthas, if we clear those away, we become very fixed.

The one… I was when I was in Montreal and Prabhupāda was there in 1968, one mother and father came to see their son. Now they decided that they didn’t want their son to be a Hare Kṛṣṇa devotee. And they grabbed their son, one on each of the arms, they are grabbed and were dragging him to the doorway, “You have to come home. Can’t stay here.” He say, “No, no, I don’t want to go. I want to stay here.” They said, “No, you had to go home.” So then he got up to the doorway and he was grabbing on the handle of the door, and the mother and father were grabbing on his feet. He’s all lifted up in the air and they were pulling (laughter) and he won’t let go. So Prabhupāda was saying this is a sign of attachment (laughter) to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, actually very hard. We are very happy that we have whole families who are devotees and families who are supporting their children. In the west, sometimes this is very difficult, even in India, sometimes they don’t understand. But in the west, because maybe their Christian background or some other background their parents don’t understand. Some are more tolerant. Some are happy to see that their child is happy. Some are very… they don’t understand. They never took the time to understand what really is my son or daughter thinking.

On this last tour when I visited eight continents in one month, all by your prayers, two devotees I met, or two devotees had been kidnapped by their parents. In the west, they have professional, what they call them as a deprogrammer. You pay $20,000, $10,000, three to six lakhs rupees and they will kidnap your son or daughter for you, and they will blaspheme Kṛṣṇa to them and the gurus and everything and try to destroy their faith. This is their profession, how to destroy someone’s faith. And one 26-year-old lady, Vaiṣṇavī who’s been serving in London for six years, her parents were very nice and said, “Please come home and visit us, we would like to see you. It’s been a long time” and they are very nice. And the whole thing was set up and they had paid at a discount rate. They paid $5,000 or 2 lakhs and that was subsidized by the church matching grant. In that country, the church is also against Hare Kṛṣṇa and they kidnapped her, took her away and hid her in some place and then exposed her to this some American guy. In America, this was going on for many years and they have been put in jail because it’s against the law. But there’s some countries where the law is very weak and they can get away with it. So now they have gone to other countries where they can do their business. Somehow this girl was able to escape and run away. You just think, you know how much faith and how much devotion. Here we are India, alright, maybe sometimes relatives criticize, people criticize. But so far, we haven’t had these kidnappings, torturing and forcing people to lose their faith. Still, they say the Hare Kṛṣṇa devotees are the toughest. They charge more money for Hare Kṛṣṇas.

Then I was in Australia and there was another case: where a young girl was living in a temple in Melbourne. The parents also paid somebody from America to do this and tricked their daughter to come for a picnic and an outing or something and took. But in Australia law is very heavy. And she called up the temple and said they are trying to do this to me, and I am sitting there telling me so many horrible things. So they called the police, and the police came and released her. They said you can’t hold her against her will.

So, actually being in India, one is so fortunate with the family you can practice Kṛṣṇa consciousness together, everyone in the community. Sometimes there’s obstacles, but by in large it’s a much more favorable place to perform one’s devotional service. You think that how some of these devotees, how hard they struggle just to be devotees. For some devotees it’s relatively easy. Some it’s many obstacles. Everybody is trying to dissuade them. One has to appreciate there are many determined devotees in the Kṛṣṇa conscious movement. Sometimes we may think that we are doing a lot of service, but actually we shouldn’t think how much we are doing, we should think how much we could do? What our potential is? We shouldn’t only look at how far we have progressed. We should see how much further we have to progress yet. We shouldn’t see these defects in others and our own unfulfilled expectations from others. But we should see our own lack of devotional qualities and how we can increase them.

There’s two kinds of householders. There’s a householder who is the Kṛṣṇa in the center, the spiritual gṛhastha. And then there’s the householder that was mentioned here in this verse, the “gṛha-medhinām, those who are attached to the bodily conception of life. Householders, who is on a platform of material sense enjoyment and cannot see the welfare of the eternal soul.” This was mainly the whole world, the second category. So our bhakta-vṛndas are meant to uplift people from gṛha-medhinām platform to gṛhastha platform, from ordinary students and bachelors to brahmacārīs and brahmacāriṇīs to bring people up to a higher level. But in the beginning, we know that well, they are just praying. They just want to have, you know, peace, material happiness, sense-gratification that will be there, you know. But we should also see to the welfare of the soul. We want everyone to be peaceful, happy. And in the material world you cannot avoid certain amount of sense-gratification. So we are not envious against anybody for having some sense-gratification within moderation. We are not envious against anybody. But we are seeing that if one gets too much entangled, and loses sight of the eternal soul, then they suffer. And we don’t want anybody to suffer. So somebody starts out in Vedic cultures of brahmacārī, they learn how to do devotional service. Then they become responsible, retire from the family activities and vānaprastha and they focus. And that time they leave aside the sense-gratification, which is more predominant in household life. And then finally they may renounce everything and become a sannyāsī, giving all the activities to Kṛṣṇa.

So here Prahlāda, he is asking his father, you should be a vānaprastha. Biggest sense gratifier in the universe. (laughter) Get out from all this māyā. It’s making you forget your real purpose in life. Little children and old people, they can get away with saying heavy things like this. If a little child says something heavy, it’s hard to get angry at a little child and if because it sounds cute, you don’t expect it from a little child. So even Hiraṇyakaśipu, hearing these words from Prahlāda, his first response was he laughed. (laughter) “Look it! See how his intelligence has been polluted by the enemy. His enemies have somehow infiltrated my gurukula and teaching him all this horrible stuff.” So Hiraṇyakaśipu’s response was, put guards around the gurukula. Make sure no Vaiṣṇavas enter in and pollute Prahlāda. He didn’t know his son too well at that point.

And the teachers wondered, where does this guy learn all these things? They didn’t know how he was taught by his guru when he was in the womb of the mother. So before he was born, he was already programmed. Hiraṇyakaśipu, he is the king of the deprogrammers. He tried his level best to deprogram Prahlāda. Sent him to a demonic school, where he was simply trained in atheism. Trained how, the enemy are the people believe in God. They are the real demon, you know, they are the real bad guys. Devotees are bad guys. Demon to them is a good word. Demon means great - daityas. When you say daityas, they are not feeling, you know, bad, “Yes!” Just like, you know, “I am an atheist. I am proud of it.” You know, there are people like that in the world, proud to be atheist. And for them, if you say you are a devotee, they think that’s dirty word. You are sentimental. In fact, many of our educational institutions, they feel like that the Maoist is saying, religion is the opium of the people. Right? That was their… Well, Kṛṣṇa also said, give up all religions (Bg 18.66) – sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja – give up all religious practices except surrendering to Him. That is the real religious activity everyone should perform. Give up all these less priority aspects of religion and take the essence – serving Kṛṣṇa.

Very nice, here, Prabhupāda invited all the elderly persons of the world to come to Vrndāvana and stay there in retired life. Here in this Gupta Vṛndāvana in the south, you are going to have a special vānaprastha facility? They can come and take up in their retired life, take up their advancement in spiritual consciousness. Had to plant a few trees, make it a forest. The point is to engage in Kṛṣṇa’s service. Now one can make their own home as a Vṛndāvana. Right? We are already making the homes as vṛndas, such as Vṛndāvana (laughter) by putting Kṛṣṇa in the center.

Actually, if somebody is situated in pure devotional service, it’s not so important that they have to give up household life. It’s not essential. The point is that to be Kṛṣṇa conscious, to give all our energy to Kṛṣṇa. If we can do that, then we will achieve the perfection.

So we should understand that taking initiation is just a birth, a first step. And then we had to go on. I admitted that after 29 years of being a disciple of Śrīla Prabhupāda by initiation, I am just thinking that how I can become a very good disciple? How I can be a better disciple? So many, seems time somehow was not utilized to the best way. Every devotee should try to improve in their own service, attitude and dedication to guru and Kṛṣṇa.

[A-side: Where is that blue book I had? The big book. The other one. Where is the other one? Cañcalapati. Where is it? Down? Take too long.]

That the beginning of a spiritual life, I mentioned in our iṣṭagoṣṭhī, we start out as kaniṣṭha-adhikārīs – just see God trying to serve God. So many people are like that, they see God is only in the church, in the mosque, in the temple, they don’t see beyond that. Maybe someone a little more advanced Kaniṣṭha-adhikārī sees representative of God as guru. But then they only… they don’t appreciate the other devotees. And then we go beyond that, and then we actually as a madhyama-adhikārī, there’s four levels. There’s a level, four different visions. We see the Lord as our shelter, guru as His representative, we take shelter of guru and Kṛṣṇa, we see the Vaiṣṇavas, who are practicing devotional service, we address them as Prabhu and we be friends with them. Be a friend means, we work for their interests. We don’t envy them. We are not against them. We work for their welfare and interest. And we share Kṛṣṇa conscious discussion with them. Then we see innocent people. People who don’t know about the purpose of life. They are not against Kṛṣṇa consciousness. They just don’t know. We see the kaniṣṭha-adhikārīs and we try to give them Kṛṣṇa consciousness, try to bring them up. Then you see demonic people who are very much against Kṛṣṇa and madhyama-adhikārī avoids them. And uttama-adhikārī is something we only by Kṛṣṇa’s mercy, one can become sees everybody as a devotee more advanced than he is. So in this way we get to learn to become a better devotee at every step. How to associate better, how to appreciate all the mercy we are getting from different devotees. How many of you have been helped by other devotees in your spiritual life? Anybody been helped by another devotee other than the guru. Aśoka, you have not been helped? (laughter)

Aśoka: Actually, I couldn’t understand.

Jayapatākā Swami: Couldn’t understand… So that devotee helped you. (laughter) Many times we don’t understand something, and someone is helping us, right? Actually, if we could be grateful to all the help that devotees are giving, then it would help a lot for us to love on the devotees.

I was thinking today what should be a good meditation on Śrīla Prabhupāda. So I was thinking that first how meditating on Prabhupāda’s greatness as a devotee, his surrender to the guru-paramparā and everything, and then to meditate upon his compassion, how much he loved all the devotees, who were helping him and are helping him, and how he had compassion for all living entities and desire to see Kṛṣṇa consciousness reach all living entities for their upliftment. Then meditate on how Prabhupāda has taken the commitment for so many thousands of devotees, disciples, and in turn through his representatives, how many devotees have taken shelter of Prabhupāda’s movement and how Prabhupāda wants everybody to be Kṛṣṇa conscious and how it’s our duty to help Prabhupāda in getting all the people who have taken shelter of him – directly or through his movement, to be able to become fully Kṛṣṇa conscious. Then think, meditate on how all these souls have taken shelter, how Prabhupāda appreciates all those people, all those who are coming forward, trying to be Kṛṣṇa conscious, who have surrendered, especially those who are actively pushing on Prabhupāda’s movement and how much Prabhupāda appreciates and loves them. And then try to get filled with the love that Prabhupāda has for all of his devotees. Think how dear all the souls are or should be that since they are all dear to Prabhupāda, how the devotees are pushing on the movement for pleasing Prabhupāda, then how dear they should be to us, how they are sacrificing, dedicating, surrendering, taking risks to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness, taking austerities, and how Prabhupāda wants them to be cared for, helped brought to his lotus feet. To think of one’s spiritual godbrothers, godsisters, if you are guru, children, nieces, nephews, all of Prabhupāda’s followers. Pray for their welfare, love them the way Prabhupāda, try to love them as Prabhupāda loves them, get absorbed in the love for the devotees and then think of practical ways how to express and show this love for the devotees in serving them and encouraging them, appreciating them and guiding them, sheltering them, loving them, treating them kindly, listening to them, engaging them practically in devotional service. Encouraging their faith in Prabhupāda, in their gurus. Helping them to overcome the obstacles, dispelling doubts and creating service opportunities appropriate to their needs. And then to take up the vision of Śrīla Prabhupāda, how to see the Kṛṣṇa conscious movement spread to bring in more people into his net of mercy. Like that, I was thinking, I am not finished yet. This is a rough draft. I am just kind of working on it. But how to actually think, how to meditate?

Every devotee should get their own mission statement, their own mission, their own vision on how they want to serve their spiritual master. How they can better devotees, better disciples, better follower of Kṛṣṇa and Prabhupāda. Sometimes we fall into the mentality that everybody owes us something, instead of, that Kṛṣṇa doesn’t need our worship. It’s not like by me worshiping Kṛṣṇa, His value has now increased, you know. The politician, if he has more people fanning him, then he gets more value. Kṛṣṇa, you can have everybody fan, doesn’t make any difference to Him. He is already cool, He is already the greatest. But we get blessed, we get glorious by serving Kṛṣṇa, it’s to our benefit. Similarly, coming to the Kṛṣṇa conscious movement doesn’t help anyone as much as it helps us. We are the one who actually, if Kṛṣṇa wanted to, he could deliver the whole world just like that. But he wants to give us an opportunity to serve Him. So He takes this role as a gardener and says, “Yes, I need help.” Someone, nice devotee had a nice realization that if He wanted to, He could deliver everybody. But He is so kind, He is giving us service. Otherwise, we would be just wandering in the material world. We won’t know what to do. Now we can engage in serving and preaching about Kṛṣṇa’s glories and bringing people back to the spiritual path. It may be that the reason so much māyā happened after Kṛṣṇa Caitanya left, was that all the souls who were on the planet then already got liberated and this is a whole new batch. So we had to start from scratch. Because He told that to Vāsudeva Dutta, “I can deliver everybody one universe. What’s that? Kṛṣṇa can deliver.” But again it will fill up. Just like you pump out from the well, again the water comes. So Kṛṣṇa is giving us this opportunity. Now we should think how we can serve Kṛṣṇa, how we can be a better devotee. But instead, if we think that I am doing so much service for Kṛṣṇa, why Kṛṣṇa is not giving me this? Why Kṛṣṇa is not giving me that? Why I am not getting this thing? Why I am not? I am serving the temple, why temple president doesn’t give me this and that? I am serving... We are always looking for some personal thing, then we will be in frustration. So Lord Caitanya said, “We should be amanina manadena – don’t desire anything for yourself. Don’t desire any respect for yourself. You just give respect to others. Then you can always chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.” (Śikṣāṣṭaka 3) As soon as we start to desire respect, if we don’t get it, we feel frustrated. If we don’t desire any respect, then we get it. We think, “Oh, I didn’t expect that.” Instead then we feel humbled. Why they are giving me respect. I can’t do anything without mercy of guru. The guru should get the respect. The other devotees are helping me. They should get their respect. So then we don’t get puffed up. But if we desire respect, we don’t get it, we get frustrated. If we get it, we get puffed up. Right? So better not to desire respect, desire to give respect, to give appreciation. So the more one advances in Kṛṣṇa consciousness then the more that we can get a taste for how much Kṛṣṇa loves us.

You see Kṛṣṇacandra, Rādhā Kṛṣṇacandra so much, He loves all His devotees, loves all the living entities. But we are not loving Him so much. Rādhārāṇī has so much love for Kṛṣṇa. If we could have a drop on the love, we would be over flooded, but we are drying up and not getting the love because of our offences, offensive mentality and somehow missing the point. So we don’t want any devotee to not be in the nectar. This is always worrying me, because I see so many devotees that are not getting the bliss. Why they are not getting the bliss? They asked me, “Why I am not getting the bliss?” We know the categories – offenses, weeds, material desires, slack in devotional service. I am not getting any bliss. I don’t find any time to chant. What’s wrong? You chant, you chant properly, you will feel more bliss. I am not feeling any happiness. Nobody loves me, nobody appreciates me. But we are not thinking that. I am not appreciating anybody else. If we actually are just trying to give love, we immediately feel happy. So one thing we found in ISKCON is that devotees have wrong expectations. And because they have the wrong expectation, when those expectations are not fulfilled, they are frustrated. So it’s very important we know what is the correct expectation.

Hiraṇyakaśipu here, he had expectation from his son, my son will be a stupid little kid. I will say, “How do you like in school?” He will say, “Oh, very nice.” That’s his expectation, right? “I like playing.” Instead, his son gives him this whole lecture, right? (laughter) On the purpose of life. And Hiraṇyakaśipu was not happy. Actually, he should have been very happy. I have such a wonderful son. He is such a great saint. But being a demon, he had different expectations. So if we have the right expectation, then we will be able to advance nicely. We will be able to see things in the right perspectives. If we don’t have the right expectation, then even if something happens which we should be very happy about, we won’t be happy. Hiraṇyakaśipu, he should have been happy. His son said a verse that was so wonderful. We are reading it as a śāstra in the Bhāgavatam. Instead, his father is upset. So we should be in the proper line, proper consciousness. Then we can become, we can survive. Otherwise, it’s very easy to become bitter. One of the qualifications, one of the disqualifications to be a spiritual leader of a vṛnda or any kind of preaching is to be a bitter person. We should be a better person, not a bitter person. Bitterness is an easy thing in Kali-yuga to fall into. Actually, there’s so many things going wrong. If we want to, we can easily find things to be bitter about. But instead, if we just think that everybody is sincerely trying, we are not expert, how we can help? How we can do something to make things better? So rather than be bitter, let’s work to make things better. Sure, there are so many things which are not up to the mark. So we think, how to find those out, how to improve them, how to improve myself. But when we think negatively against others, we lose our trust in the other devotees. We lose our love for the other devotees. We become embittered.

Some months ago… it’s so easy for misunderstandings to happen. I heard one devotee was becoming bitter against me, during the big rush of guru-pūjā, she had come up and somehow I didn’t give her a sweet. She thought, “Guru has rejected me. I knew it. He doesn’t love me anymore.” I didn’t know. Somehow it happened, you know, I was busy doing something on my computer or something. Whatever I was doing, she walked in front of me. I didn’t see her. I didn’t say anything. She thought, I am ignoring her. Guru doesn’t love me, second confirmation. Like this, she wrote a letter, I didn’t get a reply. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t get the letter. That was it, really confirmed. Guru doesn’t love her anymore. So then since the guru doesn’t love me, nobody loves me in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Then I should go to some other group. They will love me there. So somebody warned me that she is starting to associate with some other group. She is feeling very neglected and bitter. Then I asked Sītārāma Lakṣmaṇa dāsa to phone her up, tell her to come to the program. He didn’t do it. (laughter) He forgot. But fortunately, she came to class. She was sitting in the back of Bhāgavatam class. I asked, “Did you call?” “Oh no, I forgot. Oh!” Then I saw she was there, never mind. Then I talked to her and explained. You know, I love her as my spiritual daughter very much. Nothing to be upset about. And I don’t know, I certainly didn’t purposely not give her the prasāda. Now it’s… the guru-pūjā is such a serious thing, you know, one person doesn’t get maybe… as we say yesterday, the fan syndrome. I hope disciples do not have such thin faith, you know. But then when she realized that I was definitely very much concerned about her spiritual life and she was crying and she was… So Kali-yuga, little things can… Kali is there to put so many ideas in the mind. One little thing happened and he is right there, “See, they don’t appreciate you, they don’t love you. They this, they that,” something, you know, he will just go on giving some, “Yes, it’s true.” And then something else happened and your mind imagines something and pretty soon you have a whole image and your mind, which is ākāśa-kusum actually, it’s not reality. Maybe a few small things might be touched with reality. But the most of it is a picture that’s created by the mind and inflated by Kali to make us lose our determination to serve Kṛṣṇa properly or to somehow implicate us in offenses to weaken us. So we had to be very careful, you see, if you don’t get a sweet, it doesn’t mean I don’t love you. Even if you don’t get a reply to your letter, it might just mean that it got lost in the mail or something. Or the secretary, sometimes my secretaries have misplaced whole stacks of letters. Or sometimes, maybe just sometimes, you know what happens India? I have answered letters, I sent a copy. They don’t get. You take it down to the post office. You have to stand there and watch them stamp it because they peel off these international letters, they peel off the ticket and sell again. 15 rupees, 20 rupees, 10 letters like that, 600 rupees, 200 rupees. So you have to actually sit there and stand sometimes. They are lazy, they don’t do that. Nobody got mail. We sent out 200 letters, nobody got. Why? Some postman became rich (laughter). Email, they can’t take off the stamp. But Internet eats it up sometime. So like that we need to be very, I need a lot of help to make the devotees... Because somebody was kind enough to tell me that devotee was having doubts, I could help. Everybody has to be representing the guru and Prabhupāda and seeing that everybody’s in good health. If they are not in good health, don’t kick them when they are down, help to pull them up. If they need special mercy, tell the senior devotees this one needs some special mercy. They are going through a rough time. In material life, people go through rough times. So we have to help people, help the devotees to get over the tough time.

So how many would like to help Śrīla Prabhupāda in expanding the Kṛṣṇa conscious movement to everyone in Bangalore? In the world? So Prabhupāda kī jaya! How many like to help me also in helping Prabhupāda? Hare Kṛṣṇa! Thank you.

Any questions?

I don’t know why they have that paranoia. I agree with you. They shouldn’t feel like that. Don’t push me away. Why would I be pushed away? It’s not guru, who pushes away. Guru is trying to pull. We are the one who’s pushing away. Please don’t let my mind push me away. Don’t let me be pulled away by the currents of Māyā. Why the guru will push away? Guru is pulling and pulling like any… his arms are getting tired. He is pulling on the rope and we are resisting like anything. And we are saying, “Don’t push me away! Please don’t push me!” [Haribol!] Any other questions?

 Narahari dāsa? Narahari Caitanya dāsa, is it?

Narahari Caitanya dāsa: There are many senior disciples who are very active before, But now, they are not that much to chanting. So what should we do about it? How we can help?

Jayapatākā Swami: Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura said it’s a tough service in Nāma-haṭṭa, he compared it to the barber service. Some people don’t shave and they get a growth. Then you take the barber… and some people are being overgrown by Māyās. They are losing their enthusiasm, lost or losing their enthusiasm. And someone who can go and preach to them and give them good association. Bring them up, is more difficult than sometimes. Inspiring a new person requires special patience and determination also. That’s why I like to step up. If I know that somebody’s not being as active as they could, or they are in need of some special attention that I can try to give them, there will be a limit. You know how much special attention I can give, Right? So that at least we can put it where it’s needed most. Somehow get people back into devotional service. Find out what it is that’s troubling them. Sometimes it’s just a little association they need. They are just a little bit rusty. Sometime, it’s some special preaching. Sometimes they don’t have the right service. They need a service they can be inspired by. Sometimes they had bad association, and they become overgrown with weeds. And they need a bit heavy preaching to get rid of the weeds. Different things, different... Everyone is a different case. If they haven’t given up their desire for being Kṛṣṇa conscious, then there’s hope. We have to fan that desire and make it grow again. Any other question? Mahārāja? Have any question? Pardon?

Question: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: So what is the question? You realized it.

Question: (inaudible)

Jayapatākā Swami: Understand what you realized. Give respect to others. It’s actually more fun to appreciate others than to be appreciated. It’s more enjoyable to serve than to be served. But until we realize that, then we are thinking that being served is the best. Even Kṛṣṇa realized that it’s more enjoyable to be a servitor than to be the served. That’s why He took on the mood of Caitanya Mahāprabhu to experience what it’s like to be the servitor for a change. He saw Rādhārāṇī is getting more happiness serving Him then His devotees are getting more happiness than Him being served. So serving is the best thing we can do. So being appreciated means somebody serving us. Naturally, that won’t be so satisfying. We can serve someone else that’s much more satisfying.

So I am very grateful to see how the Bangalore center here is nice and clean and it’s going on so nicely. So many devotees are helping, that when devotees are coming for the evening class. Of course, to all of the devotees who are helping in this effort to go on setting your goals and see what you want to achieve through all your efforts and Kṛṣṇa’s mercy, you have been able to have the nice facility. Now what your goals are, what you’d like to achieve in five years and 10 years in one year. Thank you, Hare Kṛṣṇa.

Devotee: Śrīla Ācāryapāda kī jaya!