20151002 Talk

Actually I have been thinking about how important the Gṛhasthas are in our movement. That the husband and wife team, they can also do amazing things. Just like Śrīla Prabhupāda , he sent over 3 couples to London and they all cultivated the Beatles  at that time and they published the 45 disks on the Apple label called The Hare Krishna Temple and also Govindam Adi Purusham. We still use Govindam Adi Purusham in all our temples. Govindam Adi purusham tamaham bhajami, govindam adi purusham tamaham bhajami. So someone complained to Prabhupāda saying that, that is a lady reading the song. He said it is a chorus. Both the men and women are singing together, very nice. So… and that ended the complaint.  Of course, we find in India the ladies they sing nice and also do the bharatnatyam and other forms of dancing. Men are busy working but they also do lots of outreach.

 I saw that some of our couples teach introductory courses, introduction to bhagavad gita, introduction to science of self realisation and they give like 6 segment courses so that after that people are pretty much ready to join a bhakti vriksha group. Of course many of our grhastas  are servant leaders of bhaktivriksha groups. One couple I know, the husband is the maha chakrapathi and the wife is chakra sena-patni. A circle -------          leader. I don’t know how to translate maha chakra. A greater circle  ------          leader. So I have seen that many of the grhastas are able to do this type of outreach programme. And I would like to encourage the devotees to think how they can spread Krishna consciousness. Of course they should not neglect the children, we should make Krishna consciuosness very interesting for them, sometimes outings, picnics. Things like that they will find interesting. I don’t remember the year, but once in Mathuradesh we went out and had a swimming competition. And then we played Haribol. I don’t have time to teach you but. 

In Gurgaon in Delhi region, one of the ladies who is doing the bhakti vriksha group, and her husband wasn’t favourable. But then he came along to Vṛndāvana and I was giving the initiations and also shelter and aspirant. So for aspiring there isn’t any rules. Instead in the future I would like to take initiation and that they chant at least 1 round. So something inspired him and he came forward to take aspirant and then he became very favourable. He started to chant 16 rounds. So his wife was an initiated disciple and she was very happy. Anyway one of the ladies who attended her bhaktivriksha, her husband was a scientist.so one day he came along to meet me and so they introduced him, he is a scientist. So I asked what do you research as scientists usually research. So he said I research pain. That’s interesting! So what did you discover. I have discovered that everybody is in pain. There is physical pain, mental pain, emotional pain and all the grhastas have financial pain, have to make the ends meet. So he was going on telling all the varieties of pain. And if you weren’t suffering from one pain, you were suffering from another. So I mentioned that Krishna has said in Bhagavad Gita “ Dukhalayam ashashvatam”. That this material world is the place of suffering and any happiness obtained is temporary. So sometimes that occupied my mind and I wonder why is he studying pain. I asked him. He said it is a multi billion dollar business. People want to take pain killers, and hired by a pharmaceutical company to research pain.but by chanting hare Krishna, you can experience all happiness and pain goes far away. There is a song in Vṛndāvana, its very simple. I was told in Karnataka that they say ananda seema illa. Nirananda dura hoite that’s Kannada. But theres no limit to happiness by chanting Hare Krishna and unhappiness goes far away. You like that?you like happiness? You like unhappiness? You wanted to go far away? You want unhappiness to go far away? Okay? See? Very bright students. So we have something that can make people very happy. Happiness without living, and make unhappiness go far away.