20150821 Addressing Bhakti-vṛkṣa Groups

Addressing Bhakti-vṛkṣa Groups

Type Of Talk:

Darshan

Location:

Bangalore - India

Date:

Friday, August 21, 2015

Collection:

Inspiration series - 2015

Audio player:

Addressing Bhakti-vrksa Groups in Bangalore

August 21st , 2015

In ISKCON, some of our members are brahmacharis and sannyasis, but most of them are grhasthas or people who want to be a grhasthas in the future. The Shastra describes the wife as sahadharmini, which translates as “companion in relegious activities.” We would like both the husband and the wife to actively participate in outreach programs. I did a house program many years ago (maybe twenty five years ago). And the grihasthas who hosted the program asked if they could see me in private after the program and I said yes. Then when they saw me behind closed doors, they said, “shhhh secret talk… seeecret!” You can all keep a secret, right? Coming back to the story, they said: “Well, we have a lot of money; we have our own car, our own house… and people think that we are very happy; but the truth is, we are not at all happy. We fight with each other and somehow, despite having material facilities, we are not happy. So we would like to know how we can be happy. Please tell us. How can we be happy?” Then I asked, “Could you sponsor a Bhakti-vrksha meeting in your house every week? They said, “We could, but we don’t.” So I asked them to sponsor the weekly Bhakti-vrksha meetings for a few months and then tell me how they felt after that. A few months later, I went to see them. They said, “Oh, the vibrations in our house have become completely different. Of course, we had different ideas about sense gratification, but we could agree on the principle of outreach for preaching Krsna consciousness, so we were able to cooperate with each other. So it is like a miracle; we feel so happy!” They sounded like they were feeling totally peaceful... “om shanti om shanti… ha ha ha…”

Devotees sing a Bengali song on adhivas days. It goes like this: anander sima nai… anander sima nai… which means, “No limit to bliss; no limit to bliss.” And the next line is, “nirananda dure jay... nirananda dure jay…which means “There goes all unhappiness, far, far away!” Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare/ Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.

Tonight, I see that some of you are married and some of you are not. And we hope you all have a nice Krsna conscious marriage, be peaceful, happy, and blissful, giving out Krsna consciousness to all the conditioned souls. There are two things that we cannot do in the spiritual world: 1) we can’t kill demons, and 2) we can’t preach to the conditioned souls. Why can’t we kill demons in the spiritual world? Of course we can’t, because there are no demons in the spiritual world. There are only nice people like you. And we can’t preach to the conditioned souls. Why can’t we preach to the conditioned souls in the spiritual world? We can’t because there are no conditioned souls there. So if we preach to the conditioned souls here, we become very very dear to Lord Krsna, and we become more peaceful and happier in all respects. According to the sages, some happiness can certainly be had through friendship, family, and society, but the happiness derived from these is not enough. There is another aspect that should be added to our life. And that is Sri Krsna or Krsna bhakti. When one adds Krishna consciousness to one’s life, then one gets unlimited happiness: anander sima nai, niranande dure jay (happiness with no limit and unhappiness goes away).

If every grhastha couple here can make a person Krishna conscious every year or every month or every week and inspire him/ her in Krishna consciousness, then we can make a huge difference. There are a lot of intelligent and pious people in Bengaluru, but if we can get them to participate in chanting and reading the Bhagavat purana and the Bhagavad-gita, then they will all get spiritual bliss: anander sima nai, nirananda dure jay. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.

[Transcribed by Sudevi Rani Devi Dasi - 30/SEP/2015]