20160806 Śrīmad Bhāgavatam (RU)

20160806 Srimad Bhagavatam (RU)

Mukam karoti vacalam

Pangum langhyate girim

Yat kripa tamaham vande sri gurum dina tarinam

Paramananda madhavan

Sri Chaitanya ishvaram

Om namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya

Om namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya (by devotees)

Om namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya

Om namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya (by devotees)

Om namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya

Om namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya (by devotees)

Devotee: An expert geologist can understand where there is gold and by various processes can extract it from the gold or similarly a spiritually advanced person can understand how the spiritual particle exists within the body and thus by cultivating spiritual knowledge he can attain perfection in spiritual life. However, as one who is not expert cannot understand where there is gold, a foolish person who has not cultivated spiritual knowledge cannot understand how the spirit exists within the body.

JPS: So an expert geologist can tell where there will be gold and how to extract the gold from the gold ore. Similarly an expert transcendentalist can understand how one is not the body and is the spirit soul. I walked in the room here with Srila Prabhupada and he was preaching to my purvashrama mother and he was telling her actually how we are actually the living force within the body and I had not heard the use of this world living force but my mother understood very well what he was referring to.

So someone who gets trained in the spiritual science of Krishna consciousness, they can tell what is the spiritual spark in the body. Some doctor cardiologist in Montreol, Canada, he commented how there is a difference between a living body and a dead body. He didn’t know what it was but he said there is something in the heart maybe known as the.. he called it a ticker. He said, one second there is the spark in the eye and then it is gone.

So Srila Prabhupada wrote to him and explained something about the science of the soul. When he asked what is your purpose, he said he that it was a very simple purpose, it was to change the way people thought. So it comes down to who are we, are you the body or are we the spiritual force within the body. When the spiritual living force leaves the body, the consciousness leaves the body.

When it was time for lunch, baby Lord Caitanya went and pulled on his brother. He told Visvarupa, “mother sachi is calling, it is time for lunch.”, and he pulled on his chaddar. Just naturally everyone was watching this boy.

Now a little boy coming and telling, “it is time for lunch.”, why should everyone turn their heads. It happened almost everyday. So Vrindavan Thakur he said, how Lord Caitanya was the soul of the soul.

And when the spirit soul leaves the body, the body is put outside. The spirit soul is what makes the body attractive. Without the spirit soul the body is no longer attractive, but so few people know about the spirit soul. So everyone looked at Caitanya because he is the soul of the souls and they  are naturally attracted to him. That’s why Krishna is known as all-attractive.

When he was…. Lord Caitanya was enacting h is pastimes as Nimai Pandit, then he would sit by the Ganges and be surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of sadhu, disciples and it’s said that he would emanate transcendental effulgence. It was like Krishna on the side of Jamuna surrounded by the cowherd boys. When some rick man would be going on the road on his palanquin, he would see Nimai Pandit with his books in his hand surrounded by students. He would stop his palanquin and get down and immediately offer his obeisance’s. Such was the natural position of Nimai Pandit of Nimai Pandit in Nabadwip. Everyone was under his control. He was known as the greatest pandit but he was so kind and so blessed in his behaviour that although he was arrogant they didn’t mind him.  This was before he manifested the sankirtan movement. So Srimad Bhagvatam, 1^st Canto tells us how the absolute truth is realized in three stages, bhramati, paramtmeti, bhagavan iti sabdhyate. That he is realized as the personal brahmajyoti as the localized super soul and as the supreme personality of Godhead.

So the sat cit Ananda of the impersonal brahmyajyoti is the sat part. Supersoul is sat cit and the supreme personality of Godhead is sat cid Ananda. So Lord would come down and associate with the devotees but because he as covered by his illusory no one would recognize him until he wanted to be recognized because Advaita Gosai had done tapasya and prayed for his to come. So in one occasion he wanted to show Advaita Gosai that he had come to answer his prayer.

One day Lord Caitanya told the brother of Srivas to go to the house of Advaita and tell him that, “that person for whom you fasted, for whom you worshipped the shaligram shila, for whom you put tulasi manjaris in Ganges water, that person for who you loudly shouter his holy names, he is now in Nabadwip.”

So Ramdas’s brother Srivas, he went and delivered this message to Advaita. After that Advaita Gosai jumped up, he started to dance, “I brought him, I brought him, He has come.”

Hari bol. Hari Bol. Hari Bo.

But then he suddenly became serious, “But how do I know it is Him? Many people know that I did tapasya, no I won’t go, I will hide in the village, if he really my Lord he will call me, then I will pay my obeisance’s, if he really my Lord He will put his lotus foot on my head, then if he really my Lord he will show my his transcendental glories, so I won’t go.”

He saw Sita Thakurani had a arati plate.

“What is that for?”

“In case he is the Lord.”

So he went to the village and Lord Caitanya was waiting, and Lord Caitanya called out, “Nara! Nara!- (the nickname of Advaita Goswami)”, and he ran out. He came out and then he offered his obeisance‘s and  Garu Sundar came and put his foot on the head of Advaita Gosai. Then Advaita Gosai looked up and he saw Lord Caitanya emitting unlimited effulgence. Nothing was visible for Lord Caitanya, his effulgence and his devotees. So then Advaita Goswami offered an arati for 21 hours.

In the spiritual world everything is living. Here the material energy is dead but the presence of the spirit soul makes it seems alive. Once the soul leaves the body the body is dead. So this is the science of the spirit. So just like an expert geologist can tell where there is gold, an expert transcendentalist can tell where there is the spirit. So this science is what Prabhupada brought to the West which we also brought back to India which many people in India are forgetting. So this is very important. So what is more important than this to understand who we are, what we are? And where we should try to go?

We all want to be happy. We are basically happy-seekers, but in the material world the happiness is very limited. The happiness of serving Krishna is unlimited. The chanting of the holy name is also spiritual. We may not know what the holy name does.

I had an experience when I was new devotee working in Montreol to get some money to pay for the rent for Prabhupada. So I was working in a A & W …41.45… stand and during the work time the cook fell unconscious. So the whole restaurant was stopped.

“The cook is down, what to do!”, so everyone was standing around, fanning him.

I don’t know what came over me. I kneeled down, and I said in his ear, “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.”

Russian ??? (laughter)

Devotee: Same (laughter)

JPS: so transcendental

Then he started shaking and he became conscious. He said, “what’s that you said to me?” First he said, “I am alright.”, he sad everyone to leave, then he asked me, “what’s that you said?”

I said, “the Hare Krishna mantra”

He said, “you see, I astral projected, I was in Belgium, and I suddenly heard this whatever you said, it started very soft, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare, it was life a reverse echo, an echo starts loud and then go soft, but this started soft and it went it louder and louder, until it completely brought me back to my body.”

So I gave his the mantra and said, “Well chant this.” This way I realized that this mantra was non-different from Krishna, it was a living transcendental presence. So this are practical things that you realize when you are practicing Krishna consciousness.

In South America there was one Christian lady. She had an out of body experience. She went to her minister and asked, “what does it mean?”

The Christian priest said, “it is a mystery, mystery! We don’t know.”, and doctors, priests, everyone said we don’t know. Must be some hallucination and she came to me and asked.

She asked me, “what does it mean?”

“Oh! no problem. In the Bhagavat Gita it is said we have a gross and a subtle body, we have the five elements of the gross body and the three elements of the subtle body. So this means you went in your subtle body and looked back at your gross body, and you are the spirit soul in the body, so when you die you go in your subtle body in your next birth, and you went and your connection with the body remained intact, so you could see back at the gross body.”

We had a seminar in Atlanta with Bhakti Tirtha Swami and one para-psychologist doctor. So they were discussing this out of body experience and my purva-ashram mother raised her had, she said, “I had such an experience.”

She said, “I fell in the Ganges and they pulled me out, and I was submerged upto here and still Srila Prabhupada said that, well you are protected from here down, then I had a stoke here, on the top of my head, I was admitted in the hospital and they were operating on me. So I left my body and I was looking down at the doctors operating on my body and they were saying, “knives, scalpel, this that.”

So many times this things happen but the devotees have the explanations of what this is, but the other’s they don’t know how to explained it. The parapsychologist knew that such things happened but he didn’t know how to explain it. So study the Bhagavat Gita and be an expert transcendentalist.

Hare Krishna.

Any questions?

Question: Hare Krishna Gurumaharaj, I have a question, may be it is a bit personal because sometimes you speak in the lecture about your purva-ashram mother, I am just wondering, what is the kind of relationship you have, is it some special attachment or you love as all spiritual souls in a similar way?

JPS: Since taking Sanyas means you are civilly dead, that means that I don’t have a direct connection with my previous family. So the atticate is to say my previous ashram. But naturally I am grateful to my mother and father for the trouble they took to raise me and by being devotee by taking sanyas at least 14 generation and may be more get delivered if I can stay fixed up in Krishna consciousness. So with all your help it’s possible.

Hari bol (everyone)

Question: How to get attached to Srila Prabhupada as you are attached to him and how to get detached from material family?

JPS: If you realize how Prabhupada sacrificed so much to bring the message of Krishna conscious to you, everyone that’s helped you, mercy can be traced back to Prabhupada and Nitai-Gaur and Krishna-Balaram. So their mercy is flowing down to you. So naturally we should be grateful to Prabhupada. If we are not grateful something is wrong with us and it’s alright to feel some gratitude for your parents but we may think that they are dead but no one dies. Only the body lives and dies, the soul doesn’t, the soul lives eternally.

So we should not be attached to the body but to the soul. So that can be achieved by spiritual knowledge, but since Krishna is the original father he shows great affection for his father and mother, but their love for Krishna is pure.

I remember there was one plane that crashed somewhere and some parents, they were Chinese or something they were lamenting and their lamentation was, “we had spent so much money to send our son to university in America so that he could work and give us some money, now he is dead, who will take care of us in our old age, pure love right?” (laughter)

Actually Krishna conscious gives spiritual knowledge to their childred. We should be very grateful to them, and by acting very affectionately to the children they will naturally be more receptive to the instructions of the parents. So Prabhupada, he was saying to Malati I think, “why you take care of your child, Saraswati?”

She said, “It’s my duty!”

Prabupada said, “No, it’s because you love your child. Because you love your child you want her to have the best and the best is Krishna consciousness.”

So with this kind of relationship the parents can help their children to achieve pure Krishna consciousness, and it’s auspicious to be attached to such parents.

Bhakti Vinod Thakur had many children and he gave them all Krishna consciousness but took it more seriously than others. So this is the important aspect of being a Krishna conscious married parent because we need Krishna conscious children and youth.

So I thought that my father would be very happy when I became Krishna conscious. He was training to be a priest but he was not happy, he wanted me to be a Christian Priest, so he said that he would disown me and turned my name over to fight in the Vietnam American Army. That time there was a draft, you were forced to fight.

So I asked Prabhupada, “what should I do?”

He said, “It’s better you fight with Krsihna’s army. So I joined Krishna’s army and after eight years my father said, “alright father is father, son is a son.”

Anyway there is nothing better I can do for my parents than be Krishna conscious. So that is te best thing you can do also, not serving the Vodca, going back to Godhead and giving them free passes.”

Hare Krishna.

Thank you.

Transcribed by: Sadananda Krishnaprem Das

Mayapur.