20181202 Śrī Krishna Caitanya Book

Nama Om…

Mukham karoti vaachalam…

So we continue with the compilation of the Krishna Caitanya book. We welcome the devotees who have come here from New Delhi, and thank you for the persimmons and other gifts. Yesterday I was walking 20 steps and today I tried to reach that but at 17 they said stop, otherwise I would be too tired for the class. Today I did not have our usual physiotherapy and the voice therapy happened yesterday. But we had meeting over the internet regarding the Temple Of Vedic Planetarium exhibition. So that is the western wing of the TOVP. So we discussed how to move the people up either by elevator or by escalator. It seems that elevator was more practical because escalator could not be submerged in the water. Since last every 5, 6, 8 years we have flood there, we have to build the escalator one storey up. After that we will have elevator that goes to the down floor. If it floods, then we won’t take it down to the ground floor. The main TOVP said they offered themselves to do the work but they said that financially they don’t have any budget for the elevators. At least not before the main temple opens. So these things we were discussing. Next week we have weekly call, and next week we will have a new agenda to discuss the exhibits on the first level. Varadaraj prabhu is our art director and he is one of the executive committee members, along with Rameshwar prabhu, Hari Shauri and others. So we have these live meetings. People from all over the world are getting on the call. LA, NY, Europe, India and Australia. So it is hard to find time when we can get everyone. India early in the morning is late at night in America and mid-day in Australia. So right now it seems meeting early in the morning in India is the best time. So tomorrow is Ekadasi in India and so we are getting ready to observe Ekadasi.

 Lord Caitanya came back from Gaya. He was initiated by Ishwara Puri maharaj. And He had been feeling great separation from Krishna. He revealed His mind to five or six advanced devotees and now He is instructing His mother, just like Lord Kapiladeva instructed Devahuti. I remember Srila Prabhupad told me that you should instruct your mother like Kapiladev instructed His mother. So I got that order from the guru. Eventually my mother she became favorable to chanting, I think she chanted 3 or 4 rounds and she would go to the temple and she would say why is that Subhadra devi watching me wherever I go? And she wrote in her will that she wanted some of her ashes to be put in the Ganges. She told me she had a religious experience in the Ganges but did not tell me about it. Now we are reading how Lord Caitanya instructed mother Sachi.

All the bitter, sour and salty preparations that the mother eats create great inconvenience to the body of the child in the womb. 

So the body of the embryo is so much flesh and meat that the worms in the stomach they come and eat and bite the body of the embryo. The embryo doesn’t have the power to defend himself. He is burning and almost dying with so much pain. So the worms in the mother’s stomach bite the tender flesh of the child but the embryo is unable to drive them, the worms, away and continually burns with the pain. So when we go thru birth this is the description of what we are experiencing every life, but we forget what it is like to be in the womb. So Kapiladev revealed this to His mother and Gauranga is revealing this to His mother. 

A child embryo is encased within the heart ribs of the mother. So the embryo cannot move much. Yet he survives by the arrangement of Providence. 

Someone who is a great sinner he doesn’t get birth, he goes from one womb to another womb and again his growth is destroyed. So sometimes a child for some great sinful act enters into the womb as miscarriage or abortion, thus they are born and die, they enter the womb and die in the womb. We heard that in some country in Europe only one out of three conceptions end up in child birth. Two, either for natural causes or by abortion or something, they don’t take birth. So to be born in  a country is a great mercy of the parents. I had a friend in America and his mother told him that you are simply an accident, contraceptive did not work, we never wanted you. So you can imagine psychologically how the person felt when parents say that we never wanted you, you were an accident.  So he became kind of a criminal. Bhagavad Gita talks about varnasankara. So we need to have responsible grihasthas who have children and bring them up with love and care so that they can also be devotees of the Lord. 

Listen with attention mother, the truth about the jiva. Seven months the living entity, the embryo in the womb gains his consciousness. 

That time the embryo remembers his previous sinful activities and he repents. Sighing deeply, he offers his prayers to Lord Krishna and prays for mercy. 

Oh Krishna, OH KRISHNA, LIFE AND SOUL of the universes, PLEASE, PLEASE PROTECT ME. Other than You, to whom can the conditioned soul submit His sorrows? 

Oh Lord, oh Prabhu who ties one up, He alone is able to free him. One may easily die my Lord but you put me in illusion in this way. 

So after seven months in the womb the living entity regains consciousness. He prays to Krishna to be released from the womb. He accepts that because he was averse to serving the Supreme Personality of Godhead and the illusory energy made him mad after enjoying material, dead matter. So because of his service to the  dead matter he became like a dead person. So he was praying to Krishna, that please the same illusory energy is Your internal potency. If I have an inclination to serve You, your internal potency can deliver me. I the conditioned soul in the womb of my mother no longer want to serve the illusory energy, I want to be Your servant. Therefore, I can be taken back to Your spiritual abode. So we have some minute independence. So we can either serve the material energy or the Supreme Person. So one hand we are immersed in ignorance and other hand we use our constitutional position to serve the Lord and get eternal freedom. These are the two options.

So the embryo in the womb of a mother prays that I wasted my life in vain. I sought pleasure in wealth and children and in this way I neglected to worship Your priceless lotus feet. 

All the children that I cared for, performing so many sinful activities, where are they now? Where did they go? Leaving me alone to suffer these reactions to my sinful activities. Some parents they do various sinful, irreligious things just to get money to maintain their wife and children. So like that there was one thief who met Narada muni and he wanted to rob Narada muni. Narada muni said if you rob me it is a great sin. So who is going to share the sinful reaction with you? I will stay here, you go and find out from your wife, your parents, and children. Who will take a portion of your sinful reaction? So he went and asked his parents, will you take a portion of the sinful reaction that I get by robbing people? We grew you up and took care of you in your childhood, we never expected you to be a thief. Now our life is almost over. Don’t give us these sinful reactions which will cast us down into hellish reactions. We cannot, we cannot share this karma with you. Then he went to his wife. You are my dear wife, you are my ardhaangini, do you accept half of my sinful reactions for killing and robbing that I do to maintain you?  Arrey baaba, I don’t have any new sarees,  I am living in this cave. I am just staying here because I am your wife. But I have nothing to do with your occupation. I didn’t tell you to be a robber and murderer I cannot take any of the karma. Thank you for taking care of the family but I cannot take the karma. Nobody was willing to take his karma!  Then he went to the children. I am maintaining you and growing you up.  So will you take even a small portion of the sinful reactions? Father, we did not ask you to be our father.  Somehow we got you as your father. We are just children. We have a whole life ahead of us. Don’t burden us with your sinful reactions. And after childhood it will it difficult for us for our whole life. So we cannot share any of the karma with you. You do what you have to do but we cannot share. So he went back to Narada muni, nobody will share with me, nobody is ready to take any karma. So Narada muni told him to chant Hare Krishna. That will save him. So he began to chant. Haribol!

Now who will cross me over this great suffering? Now You are my Friend and You can alone deliver me. 

By now I have realized Your lotus feet are truth Please Prabhu Krishna, accept me. I am surrendered at Your lotus feet. 

You are like a desire tree and I have given You up foolishly. Instead I wrongly went on a sinful path. Being maddened. (Keep your questions ready.) One can also read in elaboration of these teachings of Lord Caitanya. in the Srimad Bhagavatam 3.9.6, Brahma’s prayer to Narayana. 

Srimad Bhagavatam says how people of the world are embarrassed by their material anxieties.  They are always afraid trying to protect their wealth, friends, and they are filled with lamentation, unlawful desires, and unlawful paraphernalia and they base their undertaking on the perishable conceptions of my and mine. So as long as they don’t take the shelter of Your lotus feet which are safe, they are full with such anxieties. So we will end here tonight. Are there any questions?

Question: How do we believe those sayings about embryos?  Nowadays we can see with ultrasound and other means that there are no worms in the womb? They do not get there from the intestines.  Also embryos born after five months often survive, meaning they have consciousness by that time. How not to let this scientific fact break my faith in scriptures? 

Gur Maharaj: Shaastra says there are worms in the stomach and worms in the abdomen. Somehow they reach over to the embryo in some cases. I don’t know how accurate the ultrasound is. Maybe worms they go at a particular time or some people have more worms than others. So in seven months it says, saath maashe, the living entity develops consciousness. So that is an approximate. Maybe someone develops earlier and maybe they are semi-conscious earlier. Just like moving but they really regain full consciousness at seven months. How can you say that you see something in ultrasound and they say all shaastras are wrong.? So then you should have some mother from fifth month nonstop every day on ultrasound then we can see for sure. See if they have sleep apnea where you wear a recorder means whether you stop breathing in your sleep, you have to have a thing on for the whole night to see how my heart works and they kept this recorder on my chest for 24 hours. So you just see for 5 minutes and then you are willing to give up all the shaastras. If you want to be scientific have the ultrasound checking the activities in the womb around the clock. Who will submit to this? What lady? Ha! So the scientists I don’t know if they, some may five months or some may say seven, any way the point is that while in the womb, at the end of the development of the embryo, they develop consciousness. That is why we recommend the mothers to read Bhagavad Gita, Srimad Bhagavatam loud so that the embryo can hear. Narada muni gave mother Kayadu the wife of Hiranyakashipu, who was carrying Bhakta Prahlad He gave instructions When Prahlad was born he remembered all those instructions but Kayadu forgot. 

So we will want to take volunteers who want to be four months’ ultrasound to prove whether or not there are any worms bite!!