19850110_Srimad_Bhagavatam.7.1.3_Everything_That_Happens_With_Krishna_Is_all_Good_New_Talavan

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapataka Swami on January 10th 1985, in New Talaban farm, in Carrier, Mississippi. The class begins with a reading from the Srimad Bhagavatam, 7th canto, Chapter 1, Text 3.

O greatly fortunate and learned brāhmaṇa, whether Nārāyaṇa is partial or impartial has become a subject of great doubt. Kindly dispel my doubt with positive evidence that Nārāyaṇa is always neutral and equal to everyone.

Purport by Srila Prabhupada:

Since Lord Nārāyaṇa is absolute, His transcendental qualities are described as one. Thus His punishments and His offerings of favor are both of the same value. Essentially, His inimical actions are not displays of enmity toward His so-called enemies, but in the material field one thinks that Kṛṣṇa is favorable to devotees and unfavorable to nondevotees. When Kṛṣṇa finally instructs in Bhagavad-gītā, sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja, this is meant not only for Arjuna but for every living entity within this universe.

Thus ends the Bhaktivedanta Purport to the Srimad Bhagavatam canto 7, Chapter 1, Text 3, in the chapter entitled,

“The Supreme Lord is equal to everyone.”

So as is customary with many of the chapters of the Srimad Bhagavatam, they begin with various question which are addressed. In this sense Parikshit Maharaj addressing his questions to Sukhadev Gosvami, that since the Lord in previous incarnations has apparently helped Lord Indra, and defeated the ah... asuras, and ah... naturally a doubt would come out that whether the Lord is impartial, it’s seems that he take the part of His...of the side of His devotee’s and works against his ah... the asuras and the non-devotees.

So then is God really impartial, is He neutral, or is it actually that He is taking sides. So, this can be asked... this can be answered from various angles. Of course commonly we know that ah... actually Krishna is neutral, but He reciprocates according to how different persons approach Him.

For instance, in Bhagavat Gita He describes, “ye yathā māṁ prapadyante tāṁs tathaiva bhajāmy aha.

According to how people worship Him, similarly He reciprocates with them, and worships them, so those who worship Him with hate, enmity, such as some of the asuras who want to kill him, then He reciprocates with them and kills them, and those devotees who worship with devotion and with faith, He reciprocates and He protects them and He ah...He gives them ah... His ah... His love since those devotees are giving their love to Him. If someone says, “well although He is answering the prayers of the respective people accordingly, but ah... one person is getting ah... slain by the Lord, and the other person is getting praised, but then in one sense is he is still equal?, and this has been answered today by Srila Prabhupada in the purport that because the Lord is absolute even if He kills someone, they achieve liberation.

So no matter what benediction He gives to someone, even if it appears materially to be harsh, ultimately everything He does is all good, and thus no one is a looser, infact anything to do with Krishna you come out ahead, just like there is some... there are some people that anything you do with them, everything comes out to be according to their astrological signs.

There are some people called the makundas, anything to do with those people comes out to be a complete wipeout. Infact if you see them, the first thing you get up in the morning, then the rest of the day is supposed to be a total 5.18??

For a total kind of a horrible thing, and there is a.... there is a story about.... you know just... just kind of off the topic but, it’s a kind of interesting, it’s kind of a Gopal Bhad story that touches on this.

That one time the king, he woke up, looked out of his room, and just ah... beneath his palace there was the house of Gopal, his court ah... courtier, he looked at him and ah... very first person he saw there in morning he got up, rubbed his eyes, opened his eyes, there was Gopal on his verandah, and he said you know, “Hello Gopal, how are you?” So then ah... Gopal said, “Majaraj, please accept my namaskar, my obeisance’s to you.”

So then that day the King was being shaved and so the first time his barber cut him. Seventeen years the barber had been shaving him, and that day he got cut. Seventeen years he had never been cut, so then the king decided that the very first person I saw today was Gopal, actually he must be one of his makundas (laughter), and having him in my kingdom is causing so many people misfortune, they are waking up and seeing him and whole days are being ruined, so I should save all the people from suffering and have him beheaded.

So he called Gopal, told him that you are going to be beheaded. Gopal said, “What! My Lord, Of course you are the King, whatever you want to do, I mean no one can argue but could you kindly tell me why?

And then, ah the king said,” explain that”, then the barber said, “for I never cut any one, never the king in seventeen years, just today I cut, this is a amazing thing.” So the king explained that this is a... this thing has happened, so I have come to the conclusion that you must be a makunda, so therefore you have to ... not mukunda, it’s makunda...it’s different.

So therefore ah... I am going to have you beheaded and saved of my kingdom from having to ah... have your inauspicious ah... presence. So then, Gopal said, “Well then, there is someone else who should also ah... given the same fate, I should not be the only one, there is someone who is a greater makunda than me.” (laughter)

The Kings said, “Who is that?”

“So, well my Lord the very first person that I saw today when I woke up was you,(gurumaharaj laughs), and I am about to be beheaded. (laughter).

So the king though, “.......alright.(laughter)

So of course there may be people who create bad influences, but the Lord He’s just the opposite.

Everything that happens with Krishna is all good. Even Putana, the witch she came to kill Krishna by giving poison on her breast, because Krishna sucked her breast like a mother, although he promoted her to the spiritual her to the spiritual realm to be his own mother in ah... the spiritual world and like this Krishna is so kind that even if a demon offers some light...slight service then He reciprocates and gives them swarupya, salokya, some appropriate liberation. So actually the Lord is impartial, but some people are approaching Him in a particular mood and that’s also one of His rasas. One of the seven temporary rasas is chivalry, so chivalry is manifested when you are fighting with someone, and hardly any fight with his devotees very often.

You see, So in a material world He sometimes comes and He fight’s with the demons, and this way He gets to well relate on that chivalrous temporary rasa, and satisfy that particular desire.

Those demons are actually liberated for being aspiring ah... partner with the Lord, so they are actually the benefactor of the Lords mercy, infact in some cases those demons get liberated while Indra all he gets is back to the heavenly planets, after he dies he may not get liberation. His extension as ah... a trustee of the prisonhouse in a very exalted position has just been extended with privileges, but still he is not been granted an uplift free, it’s just instead of having to be behind the bars in the lower planets, ah... he is able to ah... roam around a little freely and ah... in the upper offices of the prison house.

So actually we see that in the case of ah... Citraketu, when he took ah... rebirth as an asura according to the curse of mother Parvati, that time he took birth as ah... what’s that, ah... Vitrasura?

Devotees: Vitrasura

JPS: Vitrasura, I was just a bit confused.

Vitrasura, at that time he was actually he wasn’t still Krishna conscious, even though he took appearance as a... as a demon, so actually he was able to achieve pure Krishna consciousness while Indra was able to achieve a little bit of security in His kingdom.

So actually Krishna said that, admitted that it was Vitrasura who was more, more blessed, more ah... he got the bigger ah... benediction, than Indra, so this happened because the... the demigods are devotees, but they are devotees of material desire, those who have material desires, then Krishna reciprocates, and give some comfortable situation. That’s why it is dangerous sometimes that a devotee in a Krishna conscious movement, if they become due to some association with fruitive workers, if they become ah... attached to the idea of having a very comfortable situation, and if that becomes predominating desire in their lives, then as a result, when they live their body, if that hasn’t been ah... thoroughly transformed into pure devotion, then they may get a very comfortable situation as a devotee on the heavenly planets, and in fact ah... apparently Srila Prabhupada said that there are many of his disciples who will take birth in heavenly planets.

So this is something we have to guard against, is ah... to accept whatever Krishna gives, not that we artificially take on a necessary austerity but to accept what comes easily and not become over preoccupied with ah... simply having a very comfortable situation, lest we think of that is the goal of life, rather that actually developing our pure love for Krishna.

You see..

It’s had to find the middle. You find some people are very .....unnecessarily engaged in dry austerities and you find other devotees are... seem to be preoccupied with having a very comfortable situation to the extent that it becomes a predominating trait, more than the desire to expand the Krishna conscious movement or to engage in pure devotional service.

So this things has to be equalised, and person wants to take basically what comes along naturally without ah...too much...an overendevour, and very carefully focussing the consciousness in in Krsihna’s service.

So Krishna is actually the ah... supreme, neutral and equal, but we can take advantage of His equality by approaching Him in a mood of surrender.

Unfortunately, that sometimes our mood of surrender may not be so perfect, therefore we maynot actually be qualified to get the full type of reciprocation from Krishna.

Therefore some of the great devotees, they had hopes or wish that Krishna wouldn’t be so equal. That he would be a little bit more ah... merciful, and out of His own initiative would actually give that mercy, but Krishna in His form as the supreme personality of Godhead, He is ah... obliged to be impartial, but in His form as devotee, when He appeared as Caitanya Mahaprabhu taking on the colour and the mood of radharani, then since a devotee is actually always glorifying Krishna, and always telling the fallen souls, “Worship Krishna”, surrender to Krishna, so as devotee the Lord had manifested that, that quality of actually trying to deliver all the fallen souls. So therefore the devotees glorify Lord Caitanya, that He is even more merciful than Krishna although He is Krishna, but He is Krishna in a more merciful form.

Namo mahabadanya Krishna prema pradayate, krishnaya Krishna caitanya namine gaura twise namo namaha So although Krishna offered everyone, Sarva Dharma Paritejya mam ekam saranam brajet, it wasn’t meant only for Arjuna, as Prabhupada mentioned here, it’s for every living entity within this universe, but there is so many living entities who didn’t surrender to Krishna, apart from Sisupala, Jarasanda, and others who are forced enough to die in the presence of the Lord, but there are so many other souls, other demons or other persons, who didn’t surrender to Krishna, although He was present.

So that’s a... their misfortune, because they had the opportunity, just like if a governor,.one time there was a , you know how devotees sometimes , just being trained as brahmanas or something.

In the ancient tradition, the Brahmanas were never to be regulated by the kings, sometimes the devotees think that they are not in the 20th century, but they are brahmanas living in the dvarpa yuga or something and they tend to neglect certain legal, legalities or laws of the land and so on, so forth which ah... appeared to them to be rather trivial or materialistic, like in India this happened that when the devotees neglected to... one particular devotee, and many devotees were just kind of overstayed their visas, they wouldn’t bother to go in on time. They kind of took ah... the people for granted. So there was a new officer and he decided that he was going to make the devotee an example. So the next was actually Gopal Swami. He went down to the, about two weeks late after the visa had expired, he went down to the office and the person became so impatient with him, that he decided to make an example out of him, had him arrested for not having applied for a visa extension within the appropriate time.

So this was pretty shocking because no one had been arrested before, specially for being over-extended on a visa. So they are very, they were very provocative that it was simply as an example.

They didn’t want the devotees or anyone to just take this things very lightly, they had to follow the letter of the law. So then he was... I was present in the courtroom and there was a lady judge and for some reason very heavy, and she also just got into the whole mood and she said you know, “well, we are just going to take this as a you know, example or something like that, everyone had to follow the law.”

Just she followed the prosecutor’s arguments, they don’t have juries there. Anyway she gave the verdict, “seven days of rigorous imprisonment, breaking the rocks, ...sh...,”

So he had rigorous imprisonment which meant you know, the worst standard of imprisonment they got..., sometimes they got A class imprisonment where they give you nice room and everything.

In spite of being given rigorous imprisonment, in the prisonhouse the people are very nice, they gave him a A class room anyway, and we got permission to get him Prasad everyday, at least they gave that permission. But it turned out that two days after he was in the prison, it turned out to be Aurbindo’s birthday.

Arobinda apart from being a famous yogi, he was a freedom fighter, and he was a journalist and a lawyer and so on. So he got arrested by the British, and when he was in the prison, that’s when he became a yogi.

This is Haridas thakur told the prisoners, this is a good place to practice devotional service, because there is not so many distractions.

Where actually Aurobindo’s spiritual life began in the prison. So he was imprisoned for quite a long time. So on, because .he was considered kind of a martyr, great freedom fighter and so on, for India’s independence on its 100th anniversary of his birth.

They... the governor went to all the prison, and he...anyone who wanted, he could be you know, I mean... apart from the serious like murdererss, just normal people that are like mist miners, they would all get parted as kind of like a benediction of Aurobindo, handed down through the parampara.

So the governor came there and naturally Gopal Swami took advantage and he got freed after two days, and ah... so many other hundreds of people got freed.

So when Krishna came in this planet, anyone who took surrender to Him, on that occasion they could get freed. So the governor came to the prison house, anyone wanted to, he could get free. If anyone was stupid enough to stay there, well that’s another thing, but generally speaking everyone, even... even if you didn’t want, actually they... they ah... even if they didn’t ask... well they can go. It’s not major criminals or anything. So in this way so many people were relieved. So some people who died in Krishna’s presence they got liberation.

Those who surrendered they could get ah... His eternal association or some even achieved pure love, ah... they were able to get Krishna, but there are so many who didn’t take advantage of that.

There were so many hardened criminals, who were too hard to take advantage of that ah... visit of the Lord. There are... they were too demoniac, and their heart’s weren’t melted, so when Lord Caitanya came, Krishna came in His form as Caitanya, then all these ah... hardened criminals instead of just killing them, He would melt their hearts, He would make them devotees and give them Krishna prema.

So in this way He killed the demoniac nature, and He would give them the perfection of life, namo maha vadanya, there is no greater ah... charitable person more than Lord Caitanya, He is giving the greatest gift, so freely, so actually Lord Caitanya’s movement is still present on this planet, been handed down through the disciplic succession, and by chanting the holy name Sri Krishna Caitanya Prabhu Nityananda SriAdvaitya Gadadhara Srivasadi Gaur Bhakta Vrinda, by worshipping Sri Sri Gaur Nitai, we can get Their mercy, this is been brought all over the West by Srila Prabhupada’s mercy.

Therefore we have this opportunity of getting Lord Caitanya’s mercy, even though we may be criminals in the karmic sense, we may have had so many demoniac natures before being a devotee, you see, even things which are not fully ah... purified, after having initially surrendered, but by the mercy of Lord Caitanya, all this can be purified and we can actually achieve pure devotional service.

So this is very special mercy of Lord Caitanya, we should understand that Krishna has offered this opportunity to everyone, even today we can surrender to Him, that is a short cut, and if for any reason we are finding that our surrender is not par, not at the proper ah... level, we should take more and more shelter of Lord Caitanya, because by His mercy we can actually be naturally ah... made into a surrendered ah... soul to Krishna, into a Krishna premi, or someone who has love for Krishna, this is Lord Caitanya’s, Lord Nityananda’s special mercy, it’s by the mercy of Nitai-Gaur that we can get the mercy and pure devotion for Radha Radha-Kanta.

So actually the devotees of Radha Krishna are there in Vrindavan, you see. The devotees of Lord Caitanya are simultaneously both devotees of Radha Krishna and Lord Caitanya, and they simultaneously participated in both the pastimes, the pastimes of Lord Caitanya in Svetadvipa, in Nabadvipa in the spiritual world, in the pastimes of Radha-Govinda, Radha Radha Kanta and ah... in Goloka Vrindavana. So this is a special benediction of being a devotee of Lord Caitanya. It’s become very easy to get the mercy of Lord Krishna when we approach through Lord Caitanya and His devotees.

Jaya Shri Krishna Caitanya Prabhu Nityananda

SriAdvaitya Gadadhara Srivasadi Gaur Bhakta Vrinda

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare

Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

So thank you very much for allowing me to visit you here ah... in Talaban, special pilgrimage place, where Srila Prabhupada has performed his pastimes. So all the devotees here are all auspicious, so by seeing their bright faces, today my day will be all auspicious.

The ah... more than my day, of course according to Vedic tradition there was the reception and although it is not ah... required or in any way... see the...actually the spiritual master is the spiritual master for Prabhupada’s grandchilder, not for the Godbrothers or the god sisters.

Infact God brothers or God sisters themselves may at any time by Prabhupada’s mercy take on responsibilities in the future for carrying on the disciplic succession, but sometimes the Godbrother or Godsister either out of respect as the representative of the parampara or as a Vaisnava or just to show example to the other devotees, sometimes they participate in those ceremonies, but although it is not all compulsory.

So, it’s a bit embarrassing for a peer, for a God brother, although in Prabhupada’s presence, there were senior ah... Godbrothers or senior Godsisters, there was always that mood which I am sure should continue, even in the grand disciple of Prabhupada, where one should take advantage of any experience that an older Godbrother or Godsister has, and how to explain the devotional service better.

The better is of course when a Godbrother or Godsister reciprocates, but in any case I am deeply ah... moved by the unity or the family spirit here in New Talaban project, and I hope that the family keeps on growing more and more, so that ah... more people can take shelter.

We seen that ah... for instance in ah... some of our bigger projects, around the world like in New Vrindavan, they have been able to create spiritual community which in itself has ah... performed and is performing great preaching. So this is also our objective, Prabhupada wanted us to have a spiritual community.

I know that when Prabhupada was in India, that time Valabanta Prabhu had written him about.. that he had just procured some ah... firms, and Prabhupada wrote that... that time he wanted to have a kind of a very dynamic ah... example of a Varnasrama system, of a devotional system and that ah... New Talaban could be ah... developed in that way to be ah... to house I think you said 10 or 20,000 devotee.

In India anyway we had 600 acres, you can easily have 20,000 devotees, to this day we haven’t figured out exactly how, but ah... Prabhupada had the vision, so here we have 1600, but according to that acres, or maybe they don’t have the equal growing seasons.

Maybe 25 to 50,000 people could be ah...(laughter) envisioned here, we will loose this world aspect I guess so. In any case there is a good scope for... for giving shelter to so many devotees, that was Prabhupada’s vision, and I was always ah... I had a personal realization in seeing Prabhupada doing different projects, that... that it wasn’t that every project was exactly the same, but that Prabhupada had different strategies for different projects. Like in Mayapur he always said, I want here a spiritual city, and then a little known project, I mean i don’t...little known for people around the world, but nonetheless it was a project that Prabhupada visited once or twice and that was in Haridaspur. There Prabhupada said, “this is a very nice village, here the people are devoted, Haridas Thakur was here.”

So he said, “built a temple here and you make this an example, a prototype of an existent village that becomes Krishna conscious”,

Like moving into right, just the opposite of what they did in Rajnishpuram, they moved in and kicked out all the old people, and make them you know followers as such.

In fact it just came as we just drove in here, it came on the radio, that they burned all their bibles,and he is declare that he is not a bhagavan, he is just an ordinary man, and that he has come to help people out, and it’s not a religion, and he said the IRS is not very interested in that pronouncement(laughter)

You may have to pay tax on this 90% or something, I don’t know what that has to do about it, in any case Prabhupada, he had a different vision, and Haridaspur vision was to , alright you come here, you set up the... you develop this temple, the ancient shrine and you make a perfect, ideal ah... village from an existing village. In Mayapur there was nothing there, I mean there is land we have is barren, I mean not barren, but it’s an empty land and you just use it for agriculture and you went to the city to built there, he wants the city to be built there. So in one place he wanted to built the city and in other place he wanted to transform the village, into a Krishna conscious one. Then in another place, in Hyderabad firm, there his vision was, “here we will make our own villages.” It was a barren land, there was no one on it. We will build the villages, we will bring the people on our terms and we will give them what will be their, in this village they will each have a house, they will have a... they will have a, they will be able to do their own truck gardening, and the produce they will give to the deities, and in return there will be some areas which will be firmed by a core of ah... devotees who are so dedicated or who are like the central administrators, under the central adminstratation.

They all grow the grains with the big machines, and everything that are not labour intensive and more machine intensive, and then they give the... the vegetables which are labour intensive and ... , and they get the grains and so they get the prasadam, depending on how... didn’t give all the details but ah... again he had some idea about building up villages in a different ...in a different way, in a kind of a reciprocal ah... barbaric system almost or reciprocal reciprocation of a... different people doing different things.

I am sure that of course this are two, three examples that I have experienced and I know that other devotees they must really have, be able to add different examples, that how different projects, in different places, Prabhupada had a different vision.

It will be very interesting here in New Taliban, to discuss on this topic that what was Prabhupadas vision here, not that we have to be stereotype and just copy others people’s programs but that try to understand what was Prabhupada’s idea for this type of project, may be the same as another project. Not that we have to just for, you know for the sake of being different, you know have to be different, but it may the same and it may not be, that’s neither here or there.

What I means is to actually understand what is the... the way that we can serve Prabhupada here, or what’s his desires or where he is given a general scope. According to this time, place and circumstance to develop things in this way.

Of course they know that this is being going on already, so I am just saying that this is definitely very auspicious way of doing things, and I am agreeing with that ah... the program of developing a project like that. So the result of that of course, if we do things which are pleasing to Prabhupada, which are pleasing to the previous spiritual masters and disciplic successions, then naturally things start to develop in a very favourable way. The more that we satisfy the previous Acharya’s , the more that Krishna’s mercy comes down.

Just look at this Abhimanyu, Abhimanyu was a 16 years old child. From one point of view he was hardly of age to fight with such stalwart warriors like grandfather Bhisma, Duryondhana and Dronacharya and others, but because he was empowered by ah... various ah... blessings of great devotees and brahmana’s , and because he had already studied under a great teacher, although he wasn’t fully complete, he was nonetheless able to do something which no one else could do, that was to break the might phalanx of the ah... kurus, so although a person may be in the the... in some aspects may not be ah... , on the same ah... fully developed, in terms of ah... being a completely ah... God realised soul or something, but just by carrying out very correctly what is the desire of the previous Acaryas, the same power is handed down and miracles can be achieved, in expanding Krishna consciousness, you see. Of course you shouldn’t make the mistake, of course Abhimanyu made, Well he didn’t finish his lessons, that time he ah... I think he was in the womb of the mother and ah... and his mother fell asleep or something and he could hear.

The last thing was how to get out of the phalanx.

So we should... so he got in, but he could get out, that’s another point. We should be very clear about what Prabhupada wants, what the previous Acharyas want, when we are clear, when we are mature, then we should go ahead without any... without any doubt, we should go ahead with full enthusiasm, knowing that their mercy is there behind us.

So, I think, already you can see that Krishna’s mercy is coming down. The evidence is there to that effect, and that ah... things are starting to gradually expand, nice devotees are coming and the community is ah... blossoming. So we should be very careful to keep all relationships on a very Vaisnav, Krishna conscious level, avoid the thing that happens when there are big communities, sometimes goes into a...ah... a loss of that family spirit, if we keep as unified, just like Krishna had a family with millions of people, and they were all one big family. So similarly we can remain one family, even if our numbers grow, if we keep that Krishna conscious spirit, and if we avoid ah... you know any kind of material consciousness that comes up to interfere with that natural Krishna conscious flow and appreciation of the good qualities of others, and avoiding seeing ah... the bad qualities. There will always be some bad qualities, no one is hundred percent perfect.

Even if are perfect, if you look hard enough, you will find something bad.

Sisupala found things to complain about in Krishna, although there was nothing wrong with Krishna, but Sisupala was looking hard enough, that he thought that he saw something wrong. So there are certainly....Krishna is absolute and pure, the condition soul are... are... even....even ah...devotees who is practicing, may naturally could have so many things that one could point out, but if we see that how a person is dedicated, how they are serving, how they are engaged in preaching, or their activities. If we rather look at the good qualities which is recommended, then we actually we start seeing that we are in a very fortunate situation to be in a society, in a community, with so many wonderful devotees, who have got so many wonderful qualities.

Alright there may be a few qualities we don’t talk about, but there are so many qualities we can talk about, and we enjoy talking about, and those are the qualities we should focus on.

And the other things, Prabhupada has said, “They would disappear, they are superficial.” Any residual material quality that may be there in a devotee will gradually be burned away by the process of Krishna consciousness. So rather we like to focus on all the good qualities we see in various devotees. Just like a parent, in their children they like to see the good qualities, they are looking, “Will my child will become a good devotee? Is my child a devotee?”

So naturally when they see those qualities, they feel very happy, naturally children will be children at other moments, but those moments of ah...showing some special quality, those are high points, points of pride or a hope, in a parent that ah... this child would be a real putra or a putri and be able to deliver the parent, if not more. So, in this way we should also be very proud when we see, different devotees rendering their nice devotional service, and that should be our source of inspiration for us.

In this way we learn to appreciate each other’s better qualities, then naturally our community becomes closer and close and all the devotees start to learn to reciprocate with each other on a much higher, more Krishna conscious level.

And that actually encourages on to develop more of a these good qualities and naturally due to neglect, any kind of bad quality that is still there they start to disappear more and more. So I am very thankful to be here in your presence, Hare Krishna

Any question? Yes

Question by Lady:

Question by Prabhu:

JPS: Or... I mean if a person... I had one person, approached me India, he was a real strange character, he said that I have been chanting 32 or 20 or 16 rounds for 26 years, but I never gave up any fish. Neutral position that we were discussing today, he reciprocates with the person so perfectly, that if some would do something like that because of their offences to chanting, while chanting the holy name, but they don’t actually make advancement, towards pure love for Krishna.

They are getting some benefit in chanting, but at the same time they are material heart, their material desires aren’t going, due to being absorbed in sense gratification like that.

So I advised him, that you should chant the names of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu, and by His mercy you may be able to overcome this ah... this desire of eating fish and sure enough after chanting Lord Caitanya’s names for some period of time, he got some spiritual intelligence and could stop eating fish, even though for 26 years he was on his weird ah... practice, where although chanting he never ah... tried to avoid making that ah... you know stopping breaking that regulative principle.

So if a person, I mean if he is determined, you know I mean, I am going to chant 16 rounds and I am going to ah... follow the four principles but if they take things in an attitude that I’m determined not to give up my material attachments, then ah... that’s anachronism, you know from our side it should be not just externals but it should be internal, that we are trying to follow the process. We are trying from our part to give up our attachments. If we have the proper attitude, we are trying to give up our attachments, we are trying to avoid, even if we not fully successful, Prabhupada said there is, that Krishna is so merciful, that Lord Caitanya is so merciful, even though we may not at the point of death have been a hundred percent successful. We can still ah... get delivered, in fact if... how long I should go on ?

I was in Montreol, and Prabhupada was giving a lecture, that time we had a Vyasa sana also, very high I mean, very... it was like, if we stand up we would be facing Prabhupada eye to eye or he would still be a even higher than that.

It’s was very high Vyasasana, and you have to crawl up, kind of steps going up. It was more like a kind of a culpit. Culpit or something?

Devotee: Pulpit

JPS: Pulpit, Pulpit. So he would be up there, he would have a sit there and would even have prasad there. On a feast they would bring him a big plate of prasadam, we will all be sitting down, and he would be take Prasad there and sometimes he would give Prasad out from there.

So one day he was giving his lecture from up there naturally, and on this point he was just preaching very hard, we have to be a 100% Krishna conscious, we have to try, we have to be a 100% Krishna conscious, we have to try for that, we have to become, if we are 100% Krishna conscious, then we get pure love for Krishna, then our lives will be completely successful.

He was hammering this point. The devotees you know thinking, a 100%!, the head of the guys were hanging down and they became very thoughtful, that 100% was such like such a objective, that ah... never think that it was possible, even you know, to get real close to a 100%, but Prabhupada was very emphatic on this point. The devotees were very thoughtful at that time.

Then Prabhupada, he ended the class, there was just a heavy silence, there was no questions, he just ended the class, said become cent percent Krishna conscious. There was just like a death...I mean there was a silence so thick you could swim through it, and Prabhupada was just sitting there on this that raised Vyasasan and said that even if you are 90% Krishna conscious, Krishna is so kind that may still be relieved.(laughter)

Then he started to get down, and he was about half way down, just as he was getting off the... that Vyasasana, he turned to the devotees, said, even 90% you can be delivered. He started walking off, then he turned and he started .....I remember that it was such a dramatic... almost you know like what you see in those movies... Julies Caesar 48.43-45, said even 70%, put His chaddar on his shoulders and raised his head and walked off..(laughter)

Srila Prabhupada Ki!

Devotees: Jay!

But the purport is that try for the 100%.

Transcribed by : Sadananda Krishnaprem Das