20200107 Evening Darśana

mukam karoti vacalam pangum langayate girim
yat kripa tam aham vande sri gurum dina tarinam
paramananda madhavam sri caitanya Isvaram

Hare Krsna! Audio started abruptly. No audio for the first five months and then audio very poor to understand guru maharaj. Please excuse me for any errors and or omissions.

Hussain Shah. He asked his ministers what is the position of Caitanya Mahaprabhu? The minister, he was afraid, I don’t know, you know what do you think, you are the representative of the Lord and you are the emperor? Emperor Hussain Shah said, I think he must be connected somehow to Allah! He asked the minister, why do you work for me? He said, you are the emperor, I work for you because you are great. No, the emperor said, you work because I pay you. If I didn’t pay my army, I didn’t pay my ministers, nobody would work for me. In fact, if I didn’t give a kiss to my queen, I don’t know if she would work for me!! But I see that great ministers like, who at that time were known as Sakar Mallik and Dabir Khas, they are running after Caitanya Mahaprabhu. And He doesn’t pay anyone anything! So unless You are connected with Allah, I don’t think anyone would get this free labor! So like this, the emperor Hussain Shah appreciated – but he didn’t know that Lord Caitanya was Allah! Ha! He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead who came as a devotee. So, similarly so many different pastimes of the Lord happened in Navadvip, in Jagannath Puri, all over in India and in Bangladesh. So like this Lord Caitanya came and He predicted that every town and village of the world, His name would be sung. I thank you for helping to spread the message of Sri Caitanya all over the world. Here in America people need, also, everywhere they need and Lord Caitanya’s mercy is such that if one chants Hare Krsna, chants the name Nitai Gauuuuranga! Nitai Gauranga! Nityananda! Gauuuuranga! They get bliss! They get mercy! Yesterday, we had the Ekadasi, I think everybody here observes Ekadasi? Right? So, many people don’t know how to observe, what to observe Ekadasi. Like this is such a holy day, one hundred times benefit of any spiritual activity, even greater than that! So, today is Dvadasi, it is a day of feasting! Hope you all had a feast? I was saying how in Sunday Feast, we should not observe too much austerity, because it makes the heart hard, but, one supreme sacrifice everybody must make – eating Krsna prasadam!! He is laughing! You like prasadam? Most people like prasadam! How many like? And this is an austerity that everyone should perform! But some people, they cannot stop eating meat, they like the taste of meat. I heard that in New York, one gourmet restaurant advertised 200 dollars a plate for hare dinner, rabbit dinner. And they brought out two rabbits – one black one and one white one. And then they asked the people, please look them in the eye and see which one you want to eat! 80% said, I don’t’ want, I will not eat. 20% said, okay black one or whatever. Then he brought a knife and said, now you will have to kill it! I won’t kill it the person said. He said, if you want to eat it, you have to kill it!  Then everybody backed out. So the owner was trying to teach them that they should be vegetarian. Most people, they don’t think what the consequences of eating meat are. You have to kill the animal and eat it. Well, animals are very nice people, they are very nice people and we shouldn’t want to kill them. There was once a drought, and one sage was caught in the drought and he was about to die, and he … to the desert. He came across a dead dog. So he ate the dog. He went out of the desert and he survived. So it was like a life and death situation, that was alright! Most people they don’t need it. There is opulent food available, they don’t need to eat the meat. If you are in a situation where it is life and death, you come across a dead animal, you might eat it. Most people are not in that situation, I would say 99.9%, before they reach that situation. So they should be vegetarian. And more than vegetarian, we offer our food to Krsna and then we take Krsna prasadam, that is transcendental, that is called yajna sista. Remnants of sacrifice. So that destroys bad karma. Anyway, it is a bit late today, I will just have some question answers and we will call it a night. Anybody has any questions? 

Question: Hare Krsna guru maharaj (guru maharaj said: Hare Krsna!) I cannot understand this. I have a brother who is working on a legal case and there is a little girl she is like 6 years old, she was in a car accident and she is in a vegetative state, her seat belt ripped all of her body and her organs but she is alive. So my brother was telling me that there was a chance that probably she would live another 50 years on life support. Maybe even longer and that they brought in specialists from Canada who can communicate with people in vegetative state and they understand that the little girl, even though she cannot open her eyes, she cannot really do anything, she can respond, she is happy in that state. But the question is that she has a mother who knows that her little girl is responding, that she wants to win, she is happy. But then you have the insurance people who want to pull the plugs because she cannot live by herself. What is the right thing to do in a situation like that where she is mentally responding, that she does not want to die?

Guru maharaj: We don’t particularly give any opinion on these things usually. What we are concerned with is that where does the soul go after death? If you can read Srimad Bhagavatam or Bhagavad-gita to the person who is injured this way, if they can hear, they can, in the next birth assuming that they have to leave, if they pull out the plug immediately, if they stay for some time. So the point is to help them to reach the next destination. But sometimes by hearing the Srimad Bhagavatam, they may get so purified that they can recover. We try to rather help a soul to reach a transcendental destination and that is our primary concern. We put Ganges water on the head, give them charanamrita, read the Bhagavad-gita and Srimad Bhagavatam, and this way try to help the soul to transcend the conditioned state that she is in. 

Question: I have a question about milk products. Many devotees have different opinions about buying regular milk from the store or they are becoming vegans. I want to know what is your position? 

Guru maharaj: We can have ahimsa milk, that is a good thing. We protect the cow, vaisya’s duty according to the Bhagavad-gita is krishi go raksha, protecting the cow. Now since most of the commercial milk is not ahimsa, they kill the cow. My person concern is, that, first of all Srila Prabhupada would take it, if we offer to Krsna, the cow is benefitted. If we don’t offer it, will they stop killing cows? Reason they are keeping the cow alive is because it is giving milk. They are just using the cow for some commercial purpose. But at least if we offer the milk to Krsna, that helps the cow. Just like, years ago there was no such thing as organic food. But now people are buying organic vegetables, organic this and that. So in the same way, if we are willing to pay extra money and get ahimsa milk, have farmers raise cows and don’t kill them, that the die of natural death, old age. I think we should go for that rather than stop drinking milk. Just like they have the people that promoted the organic movement, they certify that this farm is organic, they become multi-millionaires. So you know, our Cow minister, he recommended that we should offer our deities ahimsa milk products. I just got some cheese and milk sent from Gita Nagari from ahimsa cows. We have a farms in New Talavan, Murari Seva. So if we take the milk and protect the cows that will be ideal. We want ahimsa milk, go raksha. But until that is available, we should be willing to pay extra. But to stop drinking milk, how will that help anyone? How ill that help the cow? That is my concern. That by offering the milk to Krsna let them benefit.

Ekanath Gaura das: I think the question is not because they kill the cow after, but because they torture the cow to get the milk. In order for us to take the milk they torture the cow. That is the main concern. Every time milk is taken, it comes by torturing them. That is why devotees are becoming vegan.

Guru maharaj: In Mayapur we have a dairy, we protect the cows. We don’t torture the cows. They willingly give the milk. (Ekanath Gaura das said: I am talking about the factory where they put all the cows together, they put all the machines. They don’t let them eat, they don’t let them move, factory farms). So if you don’t take milk, will they stop doing that. (Ekanath Gaura das: At least we are not part of that.) I am offering it to Krsna, they will get some spiritual benefit. Which you are depriving them from. They are being tortured any way. I don’t know if that is torture for them but. Any way, it is my personal viewpoint. As I said, different people have different viewpoints. 

Question: Hare Krsna dear guru maharaj: PAMRO. Two questions: Question no. 1 Austerity is needed to grow in our bhakti, can you advise what type of austerities can make one hard hearted?

Guru maharaj: The austerities – no meat, fish, eggs, onion, garlic, no intoxication, no illicit sex and no gambling. These are the austerities we are doing. The austerity like some people fast for many days, they do heavy austerities, so that may produce a hard heart. 

Question No. 2: (Guru maharaj said:2) The consciousness of the cook goes into the food. Does it apply even to the bhoga made at the temple kitchen?

Guru maharaj: You see, cooks in the temple are supposed to be second initiated. And therefore we take the cooked food to be somewhat pure, and that is offered to Krsna, Radha Krsna, Nitai Gaur, Jagannath Baladev Subadra. So accordingly we think that that doesn’t have any karma. Rather that has the ability to neutralize the karma. But if we have somebody cooking who is not initiated or we are taking food from them, Srila Prabhupada said, do you have to take, if they give us free food, we take their karma. If we take free from Krsna, then no karma. But if we take free food from anyone else, there may be karma involved. So the karma is more if the food is boiled, like boiled rice, and less karma if it is ‘paka’ that means fried like puris, singadas, or kachoris, etc. And then less if it is fruit. But if a person is an initiated devotee and they are offering it to Krsna, maybe you can consider if it has any karma.  Alright!