19850326_Srimad_Bhagavatam_3.29.18_Bangalore_48kbps The following is a class given by His Holiness Jayapataka Swami on March 26th, 1985 in Bangalore, India. The class begins with a reading from the Srimad Bhagavatam, 3rd Canto, Chapter 29, text 18. ādhyātmikānuśravaṇān  nāma-saṅkīrtanāc ca me ārjavenārya-saṅgena  nirahaṅkriyayā tathā JPS: Translation by His Divine Grace Abhaya Charanvindu Swami Prabhupada. A devotee should always try to hear about spiritual matters and should always utilize his time in chanting the holy name of the Lord. His behavior should always be straightforward and simple, and although he is not envious but friendly to everyone, he should avoid the company of persons who are not spiritually advanced. Translation with repetition: JPS: A devotee Devotees: A devotee JPS: should always try Devotees: should always try JPS: to hear about spiritual matters Devotees: to hear about spiritual matters JPS: and should always utilize Devotees: and should always utilize JPS: his time Devotees : his time JPS: in chanting the holy name Devotees: in chanting the holy name JPS: of the Lord Devotees: of the Lord JPS: His behavior should Devotees: His behavior should JPS: always be straightforward Devotees: always be straightforward JPS: and simple Devotees: and simple JPS: and although he is not envious Devotees: and although he is not envious JPS: but friendly to everyone Devotees: but friendly to everyone JPS: he should avoid Devotees: he should avoid JPS: the company of persons Devotees: the company of persons JPS: who are not spiritually advanced. Devotees: who are not spiritually advanced.

Purport: In order to advance in spiritual understanding, one has to hear from authentic sources about spiritual knowledge. One can understand the reality of spiritual life by following strict regulative principles and by controlling the senses. To have control it is necessary that one be nonviolent and truthful, refrain from stealing, abstain from sex life and possess only that which is absolutely necessary for keeping the body and soul together. One should not eat more than necessary, he should not collect more paraphernalia than necessary, he should not talk unnecessarily with common men, and he should not follow the rules and regulations without purpose. He should follow the rules and regulations so that he may actually make advancement. There are eighteen qualifications mentioned in Bhagavad-gītā, among which is simplicity. One should be without pride, one should not demand unnecessary respect from others, and one should be nonviolent (amānitvam adambhitvam ahiṁsā). One should be very tolerant and simple, one should accept the spiritual master, and one should control the senses. These are mentioned here and in Bhagavad-gītā as well. One should hear from authentic sources how to advance in spiritual life; such instructions should be taken from the ācārya and should be assimi...assimilated.

It is especially mentioned here, nāma-saṅkīrtanāc ca: one should chant the holy names of the Lord — Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare — either individually or with others. Lord Caitanya has given special stress to chanting of these holy names of the Lord as the basic principle of spiritual advancement. Another word here...used here is ārjavena, meaning “without diplomacy.” A devotee should not make plans out of self-interest. Of course, preachers sometimes have to make some plan to execute the mission of the Lord under proper guidance, but regarding personal self-interest, a devotee should always be without diplomacy, and he should avoid the company of persons who are not advancing in spiritual life. Another word is ārya. Āryans are persons who are advancing in knowledge of Kṛṣṇa consciousness as well as in material prosperity. The difference between the Āryan and non-Āryan, the sura and asura, is in their standards of spiritual advancement. Association with persons who are not spiritually advanced is forbidden. Jay Nitai Gaur

Lord Caitanya advised, asat-saṅga-tyāga: one should avoid persons who are attached to the temporary. Asat is one who is too materially attached — who is not a devotee of the Lord or who is too attached to women or enjoyable material things. Such a person, according to Vaiṣṇava philosophy, is a persona non grata. Such a person... devotee rather should not be proud of his acquisitions. The symptoms of a devotee are meekness and humility. Although spiritually very advanced, he will always remain meek and humble, as Kavirāja Gosvāmī and all the other Vaiṣṇavas have taught us by personal example. Caitanya Mahāprabhu taught that one should be humbler than the grass on the street and more tolerant than the tree. One should not be proud or falsely puffed up. In this way one shall surely advance in spiritual life.
Thus end the Bhaktivedanta translation and purport to Canto-3, Chapter-29, Text 19, in the matter, chapter subtitled “Explanation of devotional service.” Translation: JPS: A devotee should always try to hear about spiritual matters and should always utilize his time in chanting the holy name of the Lord. His behavior should always be straightforward and simple, and although he is not envious but friendly to everyone, he should avoid the company of persons who are not spiritually advanced. Well, this is a very nice verse which tells the devotees what the priorities are for dancing in spiritual life. This type of very useful, good, instructions are found throughout the Srimad Bhagavatam and the Bhagvat Gita. They are given for being a practical guideline on how should act. We should try to follow this guidelines given by the Srimad Bhagavatam. Devotee is not someone who merely has a sentiment. That he is a devotee but doesn’t try to follow the scriptures. One should actually try to implement this guidelines given by the Srimad Bhagavatam. Here it is advised that we should always try to hear about spiritual matters. In the previous verse it is said that the symptoms of pure devotional service is when we spontaneously we find that our consciousness in fixed as soon as there is a glorification of Krishna and His devotees. When our mind doesn’t wander away but it remains fixed hearing those transcendental vibrations. Now that is a perfectional stage symptom. Now here it tells us, that even if we are not in that stage, where our consciousness is spontaneously attracted to hearing about Krishna, still we should always try to hear about spiritual matters. It may be that spontaneously when hears the news broadcast or the sees a newspaper, one is attracted and one would like to read for one hour or half hour all of the flickering news, and when it’s time for the Bhagavat Gita or the Bhagavatam class or when it is time to seat and read the scriptures you find that your mind is wandering away to different directions. May be found that such reverse symptoms are there. Nonetheless than one should make a conscious effort to try to hear spiritual matters. Just as in the Vedas it is said that we should read subasyam sigram. We should do the auspicious thing today, and those thing that are ashuba, inauspicious, we should do that tomorrow, we should do that later. So we should always prefer to take up our spiritual duties, and then after that if we have to do any other type of duty, then we do that subsequently. So know here that again and again, the scriptures tell us how we should try to do things. Sometimes we hear people say... you ask them, “Why don’t you come to the temple?”, the say, “If the Lord ah... takes me then I will go.” “Why don’t you come to class?” “Well if I get dragged to class then I will go.” No its not... we should try. By the law of karma, you will be dragged to death. By the law of Karma you will be dragged here and there, to fulfil your various material desires. That will happen automatically, but by the law of karma no one is dragged to Krishna. One has to desire to go to Krishna. You have to consciously will to engage in spiritual life, and then you can counteract karma. Otherwise if you are waiting for the flow to take you, you will probably find it will not take you to Krishna, it will take you to where your previous births have dictated that you should be taken. The only exception in this case is that sometimes by the prayers, desires, good wishes of a devotee of Krishna, one is brought to Krishna, even though one should not have the opportunity according to one’s karma. Similarly by rendering out some devotional service in the past, one may again and again given some opportunity to render devotional service. We should take it up. We should try for it. We shouldn’t, when the opportunity comes knocking at our doors, we shouldn’t take some kind of abstract impersonal viewpoint. We should personally take up, try and be Krishna conscious. What do we have to lose. Nothing to lose, with so much to gain. Krishna tells Arjuna in the Bhagavat Gita, “Now you decide. Now it is your decision. You can fight or you can leave.” Throughout the Vedas we find that there is a choice. For us it may be that normally, those who are godly people they make the godly choice, and those who are ungodly people make the ungodly choice, the demoniac choice. That maybe the normal result that you find. Nonetheless the choice is there. Somehow or another we should try to make the right choice. We should try to... even if we find that our impulse is to make the wrong choice, do not choose to hear spiritual matters, to rather to hear materialistic matters, we should try hear spiritual matters. Again and again, we should try to... that is to our own good interest. Nama Sankirtanachaya me, and we should hear Krishna’s holy name, chant Krishna’s holy name. Actually in the Vedas, in devotional service there are various angas or principle practices that we are recommended to do. There are so many subsidiaries advises that are also given. So of the 64 items, there are some items which are very important. In out of all of those items, the item which is most important... you have to one item out of all 64, then you should do this nama sankirtanam, you should chant in the congregational chanting of the holy names of Krishna, because that can be done whether a person is pure or impure, clean or unclean, no matter what circumstance, what situation he is in, he can engage in this namasankirtanam. Whether a suci, or asuci, whatever. There is no such restriction. There may be some restriction to worship the deity under certain circumstances, but there is no such restriction for chanting the holy name. There is a story that they tell in Jagannath Puri, at the Gaur Gambhir math, the followers of ah... Gopal Guru, that one time Caitanya Mahaprabhu... Caitanya Mahaprabu was in His lila, who was acting like an ordinary person, and so temporarily He went into the bathroom, and one small ball brought water to Him whose name was Gopal, and He called it to Lord Caitanya that why He was not chanting the name of Krishna, then Lord Caitanya said, “Well, this is a unclean place.” Little Gopal said, “But you never know when you are going to die, so you should chant every time, every place. So then Lord Caitanya said, “since you are instructing me, you are no longer Gopal, now you are Guru, Gopal Guru.” Of course, it’s not the position of anyone to instruct Lord Caitanya. Little boy, he accepted his instructions, which has meant in a good way. So yes, this is correct. So he became known as Gopal Guru, and he wrote a book on chanting the holy name. Later he became ah... active preacher of Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s movement. So there is no hard and fast rule. Lord Caitanya has told us, “Namnam akari bahuda nija sarva saktis, tatrapitah niyamah smarane na kalah.” So we should take up the chanting as our prime responsibility. You find these recent instructions are given, many times in the scriptures in many different ways. Archamenarcha, sangena, archavena That one quality of the vedic culture, Arya culture, is ah... to be very Krishna conscious, very God conscious, godly. So archavena means to be straightforward, that means to be non-diplomatic, just like you find in the Mahabharat that Duryodhana, in fact in the Bhagavat Gita, Duryodhana is ah... chastising Dronacharya, in the first chapter that you are so liberal that you taught our enemies, this Pandu’s, specially Arjuna, the whole military science. So he was asking in such a way to find out whether in the battle field also he would be so liberal or he would fight liberally. Dronacharya was so liberal that naturally he taught Arjuna, all the military science, even though he may have had the vision that in the future this may be used against himself or Dronachary, Drona... ah... Duryodhana. That means that he had no diplomacy, he was very straightforward, this thing is... similarly the brahminical nature is that one should do whatever is correct, as Krishna conscious one should do it, even if one sees that by doing that materially I may suffer, one should avoid being diplomat, diplomatic. For the interest of Krishna sometimes, one under guidance can make some kind of plan, which may appear to be diplomatic because sometimes for instance, just like our nitishastra pandit, Chankya said, “When you are dealing with a crooked person you may have to be crooked.” “If you are dealing with a clever person, you have to be cleaver”, and “if you are dealing with a straightforward person you have to be more straightforward.” Sometimes people come to cheat Krishna. So that time if we be very straightforward, then Krishna may suffer. Just like in ah... in ISKCON, in the Bombay property, the person sold us the property with the idea of getting the advance money from ISKCON, and then driving us off. In fact they hired ah... the police to come and act like goondas, and the police came and cut down the temple with blowtorches, even without a proper court order. So therefore Prabhupda, he had to, in a very cool head think what to do. So may be in such circumstances for Krishna one will do something which may appear to be not straightforward. Just as Krishna told Arjuna in the battlefield to...told Yudhishir to shout out that Aswathama in loud ah... voice and then small voice, the elephant. Aswatham iti hatva, Aswathama the elephant is dead. So it was a type of diplomatic behaviour, but for Krishna’s interest one has to do this things sometimes. That should not be done frivolously, or without cause, but it shouldn’t be done for one’s own interest, or one’s own ah... material purpose, because then one’s consciousness get’s trained up in being a very devious kind of person, and thus it is hard to be straightforward even with the spiritual superiors. So one should be Arjavena, should be ah... be very straightforward in one’s dealings. This word Arya is very important. Of course, whether Arya or Dravidian, implications are the same. In the Sanskrit Arya means, that which connected with spiritual culture. Radharani’s one name is Arya, and therefore she is worshipped as a personification of all the good qualities of Arya culture. So we should try for the Arya sanga, that means spiritual association. This is very important. Sometimes we find that when a devotee associates too much with nondevotees, including one’s own materialistic mind, then one can fall down. You might be surprised that I include mind, as a nondevotee, but in the beginning of our devotional service, before the mind is purified, the mind may have so many materialistic thoughts that if we allow the mind to just go on and think, we just allow ourselves to sit and think, that itself could be bad association. Therefore even our thoughts are organised, that when we think something we should analyse it, according to the vision of the scriptures, according to the vision of the spiritual master, not that we go on and on thinking in our own way without analysing whether those thoughts are in fact ah... fanta...fantasies or are they materialistic thoughts, or are they spiritual thoughts. Therefore, people who are prone to sit and think, in a very unregulated way they are also seems 24.18-20 to become bewildered. When you find a person very thoughtful, and very unhappy, that means that their thought is probably not being directed along spiritual matters. Because in Bhagavat Gita describes ah...susukham kartum avyayam, this process makes one very happy, so if one is thinking about spiritual matter than one feels happiness. So when we are associating with devotees, naturally our thoughts are directed along spiritual matter. When we are associating with nondevotees in a very intimate way than our mind is more easily directed along materialistic thoughts. So Caitanya Mahaprabhu and Lord Nityananda, they always wanted to associate with devotees. One time they were walking toward the house of Advaita Gowami, in Santipur, which is about 50 Kms or 40 kms, well maybe 20... 25 kms or less, from ah... Nabadwip Dham, Mayapur. So on the away there was a sanyasi who greeted them and invited, “Please you are great devotee’s, you please come to my house”, So they thought, “here is a sanyasi, we should go to his house, he is a devotee or something.” So they went and he treated them very nice. Offered them a seat, respected them, and he told them so many things about ah... praising Krishna, praising devotional service, so then he requested that, “you please take some fruits, Prasad.” , so then he gave them a plate and gave them some fruit prasadam. Then as they were taking some fruit prasadam, then he brought out, I believe he brought out some wine, said you take some wine.
Lord Caitanya and Nityananda looked at each other and they said, “Wine! You take wine?”, and he said, “Yes, why not? It’s good for one”, gave some stupid answer. They jumped up, Nitai-Gaur ran from that place and jumped with their whole clothes on, right into the Ganges. They said, “We took food in a house of a someone who was a... false sadhu, who is taking, breaking regulative principles.”, they were so disgusted with Themselves, that they have been fooled in this way. Of course they can never be fooled but ah... I think even before They took anything actually, they sat down to take and it was revealed, so they were saved by Their own arrangement. Still, that they sat down, they felt very bad. Somehow or another that, that false sadhu because of some great good fortune, inspite of breaking principles, because of some unknown reason, he was able to get the association of Lord Caitanya. After that he realized his mistake seeing how strongly Lord Caitanya, Nityananda reacted and he recorrected himself, but They would go there immediately seeing his fallen nature. So Lord Caitanya, Nityananda They respected the Vaisnava’s, but They showed by Their own example that They didn’t want to associate with someone who was even a devotee, if he wasn’t following the principles. They avoided that. They wouldn’t take food certainly at Their house. Therefore we also, Lord Caitanya advised us that we shouldn’t take any food cooked by non-devotees. Visaya anna khailo visakto hoila man If you eat the food, specially the ah... grains cooked by ah... non-devotees, by materialistic people, Mahaprabhu says that this can contaminate your consciousness. In fact it is explained before in some occasions, that the reason was asked that, “how was it that in the Kuru’s rajsabha in the presence of great souls like Bhisma, Dronacharya, how was it that Draupadi who could be attempt to made... disgrace her in public. So the explanation is given that, because Bhisma, Dronacharya had eaten the food given by Duryodhana, materialist, their mind had become polluted. Even if a great mahajan if he eats the food by materialistic people, this can affect their consciousness, what to speak of a ordinary persons. So we avoid taking any donation of food stuff cooked by ah... materialistic people. Even the Kurus, were certainly vegeterians or following vedic ah... principles to ah...to a large degree, being emperors, and there is no mention that they took ah.. that Bhisma or ah... Dronacharya although they are ksatriyas, they have got some facilities sometimes to take meat, but in any case certainly whatever they did was according to Vedic culture. So even then, it’s not that the food was then necessarily... exceptionally sinful, more than being like totally non-vedic, but it wasn’t prasadam, that’s for sure. It wasn’t offered to Krishna, it was a food cooked by materialist’s, Duryodhana was certainly a materialist, there is no doubt about that, and that materialistic food accepted in charity by Dronacharya and Bhisma, had such a contaminating effect that they lost their own 31.06, in terms of proprietry. They lost the strength to be able to react, appropriately to 31.13 the chastity of one of the ah... most, how you could say, the most chaste ah... woman, mother Draupadi. So we should be very careful about what we eat. Even a materialist say, “You are what you eat”, but they don’t know that this has spiritual significance as well. So we should avoid this type of intimate association. That means not ah... in some envious kind of way, not that some kind of idea is presented here that we should feel envious or something like, “OH! This people are untouchables. We cannot go with them, we are very advanced, nothing like that.” Devotee is not feeling envious. Devotee also go to those people to preach to them, to try to elevate them, but won’t intimately associate and talk useless talk, and eat their food and associate as an equal. Will keep careful distance because by too intimate 32.28-32 they can pollute one’s consciousness, and one could gradually take on an enjoying attitude just by that type of association. Prahlad Maharaj said in the Bhgavatam that association is so powerful, acts like a mirror. Whomever want to associate with, they start to take on those qualities, so you can imagine like associating very intimately with materialistic people, this can affect one’s outlook. So therefore, we regularly associate with the Mahabhagavatas, every morning hearing the Bhagavatam, hearing about the great devotees, cleansing our consciousness, so when even we go out and preach to people, even that association may have some rub off effect. So we want to, ah... repeatedly purify the consciousness by bhagavata nitya sevaya, by associating with the pure devotees, and by hearing about the pure devotees, serving the pure devotees, so on. So niraham kriyaya, well the devotee doesn’t despise fallen people. It’s not that we hate fallen people. We hate the disease. We are afraid or cautious about the disease that they possess. As doctors we go and we try to cure them, but if you see expert doctor when he is working in a kind of plague situation, you find that when they investigate a patient, afterwards they are very careful to wash their hands, to follow the hygienic principals, because they may also get infected. Not that you are a doctor, you are immune from being infected. One shouldn’t be falsely proud, one should be Nirahankara, one shouldn’t be falsely proud thinking that I am a devotee, I can never be effected by maya. We should have a healthy respect for this disease known as Maya, and although we are trying to cure people of that disease, we should always be careful ourselves to try to avoid contracting it. We should never think ourselves to be totally immune. We should know our own relative spiritual strength, and accordingly we should ah... add in a very careful contentious manner. So this is the basic principles. We find that the great devotees like Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami and others are always very humble. They follow the principle, Trinadapi sunicena taror eva sahisnuna, amanina manadena kirtaneya sada hari.” In fact Lord Caitanya said you should be wear that prayer around his neck, where it is right over your heart, practice it everydy. Then we can chant, “Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Hare Hare.” Devotees start to look a little more like Krishna also. Generally their faces become a little rounder. Materialists, you find the meat eaters, although they always say that, “You have to eat meat to be healthy, usually they have 34.14-16, like a tiger or wolf or like a fish, so although they always say about meat for protein and everything, usually you find that their features are very ah.. chunky, kind of shallow, but they are also eating a lot of Krishna prasadam, ghee, generally find them kind of round face, bright features, even in the West, I read recently that ah... 36.46 I believe, no it was, it was one famous writer who became vegetarian. Even by eating vegetarian food one is ah... takes on the qualities of one in the mood of goodness, then if you eat prasadam, then yes gradually your body becomes spiritualized. So this way the devotees we like, we touch the bodies of the devotees, considering them to be purified. Not interested in touching the bodies of non-devotees or being touched by non-devotees. Doesn’t mean to say that untouchability and all that in that sense, it just that they are not considered ah.. clean in many cases, so they are not considered, it’s not ah... having the spiritual vibrations, there is no advantage to touching them. Anything there might be some disadvantage, we don’t unnecessarily want to have that type of intimate contact. But ah... mentioned, one of the things, for the sense of touch, it can be purifying by touching the devotee, that means that by touching a devotee your sense of touch can be purified. Therefore the devotee’s body must be spiritualized, that’s not only by taking prasadam, but by being utilized in Krishna’s service. So I was saying that ah...that the vegetarian writer, he even at his old age, he did not look so old, he looked a bit young. So somebody asked, “how is it that you look so young.” So he said, “It’s not that I look young, I look my real age, but because all you people are eating dead bodies, you all grow old faster. Actually everyone would look younger if they eat the proper diet.” So actually you find that in India, generally speaking, lot of the people, specially those who are vegetarian, they don’t look ah... that old as if you see a person in the West, at the age of 50 they look like they are totally, it’s frightening the way they look. When I leave India, and go first a few days in the West, there is a big shock, the old people their features are very horrible looking. Therefore they take all this plastic surgery and everything, because of all the sinful diet, they look very old very fast, but ah... generally you find that in India, the people they don’t start looking old until they are very old, because ah... of more natural diet, lifestyle, regulations, and devotee’s they don’t look old at all. They always have a type of youthful appearance, even they are very old, materially speaking you can find some youthful lustre about them. That we observe that although Srila Prabhupada was 70 or 80 years old, that there was always a youthful energy, a type of navayauvanam, just like Krishna is ever-youthful, there was that type ah... spiritual energy which appeared as a very youthful influence, so that is all a part of spiritual diet, spiritual energy, spiritual consciousness. So if you want to get the fountain of youth, well you should be Krishna consciousness, and you stay younger longer. You can eventually, you can stay young eternally when you get your spiritual body. But this body unfortunately, it will not last forever. So eventually it will... it has a planned 40.49 of a hundred years, because people misbehave, it doesn’t even last hundred years. Sometimes even the devotees, for preaching they take on so many responsibilities that also shorten their lifespan materially speaking, but for Krishna they take that risk, because of course when this body is finished they get a spiritual body, and that body never grows old. So one can start to spiritualize one’s body even now in this material world, by this process. Ah... one time in Africa, Prabhupada was being invited to take meals at different Gujarati’s houses, he said that, “No, I can only go if someone becomes a life member.”, so people were coming and paying life membership fee, and then Prabhupada said, “They are paying us just to eat, but ah... of course those who were ah... vegetarian people, devotees, and Prabhupada had ah... usually would ah... have someone offered ah..., and see if it was prepared... actually they are paying us in a sense, but ah... they were pure devotees. They were not pure devotes, but ah... they were devotees at one level, they became life member, they are giving donations, plus they were following the principles, atleast vegetarian, still the devotees could feel that by taking that food it affected their consciousness, although it didn’t affect Prabhupada’s consciousness, but other devotees could feel a drain by taking that. So sometimes for preaching, one does accept from some ah... devotee like that who is living a satvic life, but ah... Prabhupada then he changed it, he said, “Well we only take only pakka food outside.” Pakka food is ah... better for people who are not initiated. He said, “ But we only take pakka food.” In Vedas it is said that cooked food and uncooked food, so the uncooked food should be only cooked by one’s ah... by initiated devotees, that means rice, dal, boiled food. Is considered uncooked, and ah... cooked food means that which is fried in ghee. So normally when we go outside, we say we can only take from pure vegetarian life members, those foods which are ah..., if we take any grain we prefer to take some food and like that if we have to take, that transfers less karmas, and if we have to take some grains, then take pakka food, that means puris, some puris, some fried food like that pakora and things like that, the grains should be fried, rather than ah... chapattis, rice, dhosa are considered uncooked. So that the devotees would just take cooked puri, halwa. Sabji of course doesn’t contain any grain, so you can take sabjis with puris, if you have to take grains, but best thing is ah... just to not to take grains at all, unless there is some special case, where you are required to take grains, then you take fried grains, otherwise ah... avoid rice and all those type of thing, because that will more effecting, more... For preaching sometimes, we do take this risk. It’s not, as we said, we do follow the rules for the, for our advancement, we don’t just follow the rule with no purpose, so sometimes for preaching if you see that by accepting some engagement or taking some Prasad... it’s also the duty of the grihasta to feed the Vaisnava. Generally the Vaisnava in humility wants to avoid taking on more karma than they can handle. So somewhere between, if their duty is to feed, it’s your duty to avoid, so how to do this ? so... It’s a kind of ah... so obviously sometime we do accept but ah...just like Sukhdev, he accepted milk, we accept according to their status, if they are pure vegetarian than we can accept ah... those type of pakka food. If they are initiated or chanting Hare Krishna, if they are doing some very important service for Krishna, then we may accept full food. If they are not very pure, we may accept just like some soda or some water, or some sharbat or something, not take any food or any grains in their house, like this we follow according to their...according to their status in devotion or spiritual life. Is that clear ? Favourable means whatever is Krishna consciousness, that will be the most favourable for the person. In preaching if ah... someone avoids telling a person, how maya may put them in difficulty, just try to say always pleasant things, how will that be favourable for the other person. In many case there two are totally different things. Being straightforward, or being non-diplomatic, and saying something favourable. Diplomacy means like this. You want to get, just like in material life, what is diplomacy. Somebody wants to get this girl, so he tells this persons something bad about that person which is a lie in order to create some kind of a plan, so he can get his objective sense gratification. This type of thing is diplomacy, or like in politics, everything is diplomacy, they say what they don’t mean, and they....that is diplomacy, why? Because they got some idea in their mind. Someone comes to you, they want to get your, they want to steal your money from you. So they come up to you and they tell you that I want to give you something, you are a very nice person, and immediately you think, “ Oh, this person wants to give something, and so your guards are taken down, but actually in their mind they are thinking, How can I steal from you?” That is diplomacy...deviousness. A devotee doesn’t do those kind of things for himself, certainly doesn’t do that for their own sense gratification, that they accept whatever comes of it’s own accord. Sometimes we are preaching, you have to do your duty, sometimes we have to tell a person that you are a very nice person, even if the person may not be very nice, but you say you are a very nice person, just like Krishna told Arjuna you speak so many learned words, but no learned man would say those things. In preaching you can just come out and say something ah... now... try to find the good in everyone.

Transcribed by: Sadananda Krishnaprem Das