19850307 SRIMAD BHAGAVATAM 4.27.10 GAURA PURNIMA THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL SUCCESS, SRI MAYAPUR DHAM SB 4.27.10:

So the description of how the materialist works very hard to achieve his material prosperity but as the simple maxim goes you cannot take it with you. So actually what he is doing is he is working very hard to give all the wealth to his children and grandchildren. So in effect they are all the plunderers of the father’s wealth. In the broad scheme, the broad overview, what does that person gain by working so hard to earn money to give to his children and grandchildren for them to squander it away? Actually in this lifetime he is working very hard but even he is not able to enjoy his wealth fully because he is working so hard to leave wealth for his children and grandchildren. So he is always in anxiety about them and from the spiritual point of view or even from the material point of view of karma kanda, in his next life because instead of using his wealth for pious activities he has simply been gathering it for his children and grandchildren, he is also not gaining any results of pious activity. Rather instead of pious activity he will have to gain the results of sinful activity for so selfishly accumulating wealth and not giving it to the owner of the wealth, Krishna Himself. So in this way either in this life or the next life one does not have a good future simply by accumulating wealth and using it for material purposes. And spiritually of course such a person is bankrupt. There is no spiritual asset for leaving the wealth for one’s children. Therefore, we find in the life of Rupa Goswami and Sanatan Goswami, that they were very careful to use their wealth for the purpose for which it was intended, ultimately for the service of Krishna. That he used 25% for his family, 25% he kept for emergency and 50% he used in the service of Krishna. People work very hard to accumulate wealth but their wealth doesn’t go for Krishna, but just goes in maintaining their material affairs. They are cheating themselves because you imagine in this material world which is just a temporary life, by giving our energy, this material temporary energy in the service of Krishna we actually gain eternal life. What greater bargain can you get? So Srila Prabhupad has given us this mercy and here we are sitting near his Samadhi. This Samadhi took a lot of Lakshmi, money, to build, it is not finished yet. But with this temporary manifestation of material nature people will be brought closer to Krishna consciousness. People ask how can you transform material energy to spiritual energy. Actually we have a way of making material money into transcendental money, of transforming material energy into spiritual by engaging it in Krishna’s service. So people who are little bit hesitant about money affairs thinking that this is material or sometimes one member asked me here in Mayapur that we see the huge contrast and become confused, in Vrndavan we see the babajis sitting in a little hole in Radha Kunda, almost like a dog house and they are chanting in great austerity and here we see big buildings and gardens and opulence, it is a totally different situation, it is a very big contrast, which is correct? So then we explained that how Srila Prabhupad indicated that for our own spiritual life you can take some simple facility but when we want to preach the glories of Caitanya Mahaprabhu we want to bring people back to the lotus feet of Krishna and in that case we build, in this kali yuga, all these materialistic buildings so that the people can be brought back to home, back to Godhead. Because these developments are going on the service of the devotees is being exchanged for Lakshmi and that is being re-exchanged for building these preaching weapons or instruments or whatever you would like to call it, facilities, whereby people’s faith and their faith is in hands, they are being attracted, they are able to hear the transcendental vibrations and in this way their lives are made perfect and it is being catalyzed or encouraged by this transformation of material energy. So, one time Srila Prabhupad told us that my big temple in Mayapur, this is going to be built primarily through book distribution. He said by distributing literatures, books, the percentage which would come from that will build the main temple in Mayapur. I mentioned before in one of the parikramas although everyone didn’t go, that Lord Nityananda had predicted that there would be in the future centuries, there would be after 400 years, sometime after 400 years, now we are on 499, as of today, that after the 400th year sometime there would come a wonderful temple for Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu and this wonderful temple would expand the eternal principle of Lord Caitanya all over the world. So it is a big way, who can get this opportunity of fulfilling Lord Nityananda’s prediction. Prabhupad here sitting in Mayapur, told us that the secret of success in spiritual life is to please the spiritual master and the previous spiritual masters. Of course, directly what orders we get from the spiritual master that is non different from the words of Krishna. It is more important to fulfill that even than our own life. Similarly, the words of the previous acharyas, these are also to be considered, we should try to fulfill their desires as far as possible. Then we can attract their very special mercy, we can attract their mercy and thus we can advance very quickly in pure devotional service. So even Krishna is eager to please His devotees. Why shouldn’t we be very eager to satisfy every expressed desire given by Srila Prabhupad or the previous acharyas? Even Caitanya Mahaprabhu came to this world simply to satisfy His devotees. Advaita Gosai, Haridas Thakur, they are praying to Caitanya Mahaprabhu, begging Him to come down to this material world. Because of their very intense prayer, Lord Caitanya came down. This was revealed by Caitanya Mahaprabhu Himself after He manifested His transcendental qualities of sankirtan after He returned back from Gaya where He had performed the pindi daan for Jagannath Mishra and He had received initiation from Ishwara Puri, He manifested His devotional attitude in a very open way. But before that it was covered when He was Nimai Pandit. So at that time Caitanya Mahaprabhu He called Ramdas Pandit, the brother of Srila Ramdas, you go and tell Advaita Gosai that that Lord for whom he cried, that Lord for whose coming, he had performed tapasya and austerities that Lord for whose coming he had loudly shouted, that Lord for whom he had worshipped so that He would come in this material world, that Lord is now here in Nadia, you go tell him. Ramdas went to the house of Advaita, he ran and went to Advaita’s house and as he was running he realized that he did not know where Advaita lived. So he became afraid and asked where Advaita Gosai lived. They said why are you asking such a foolish question, you are standing right in front of his house! So by Krishna’s arrangement he was able to find Advaita Gosai’s house. He went inside, paid his obeisances as soon as he saw Advaita. There Advaita was very busy, at that time he was running here and there, almost agitated and without saying a word Advaita, he just started to chastise him. How is it possible that Sri Krishna can come in this kali yuga? How is that possible? And if He did come, how will we know it? How can we believe it? Ramdas was astonished, he didn’t say anything. Before I said anything, he is already knowing what is in my mind! Of course he knew that this Advaita Gosai, he is famous for being very special, he had some unusual powers. So he knew he just had to listen. Then Advaita Gosai became quiet and he asked Ramdas, what do you want? Why have you come? I was sent here with a message Ramdas said. What is your message? Then he explained that that Lord for whom you worshipped, loudly shouted, you cried, that Lord for whom you did so many austerities, that Lord has now come here in Nadia. As soon as Advaita Gosai heard that he jumped up and said, Hari bol! Hari bol! My Lord has come! He has come! He has come! Hari bol! He was dancing. I brought Him down. He felt some transcendental ego you can say. I brought Him down. He’s come He’s come! Hari bol! Dancing! Ramdas was astonished to see this. His expression in ecstasy, transcendental characteristics. Suddenly however Advaita became very serious and then he said, how do I know? What if I am being cheated? What if He is not my Prananath? What if He is not the Lord of my soul? The Lord of my life! I won’t go! I am not going! Ramdas didn’t know what to do. He was finding Advaita’s sublime personality so deep that it was beyond his reach to grasp. The Lord is waiting for you! No I won’t go. Then Advaita said I am not going but I am going to hide by the side to see what happens. If He is really the Lord of my life, if He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, that means He is the Supersoul, He knows what we are doing, what we are thinking better than we know. So here I will be there without announcing myself, I will be hiding in the side. And if He is really the Lord then He will show me His transcendental glory and He will put His lotus feet on my head. If this happens then I will know that in fact, He is Krishna Himself come down otherwise I won’t believe it. How can we believe? In the meantime, Sitarani the consort of Advaita Gosai, she had already prepared the puja tray, just in case. She was very expert vaishnava. So the two of them they went off and Ramdas he was on his own. He ran back again to see Caitanya Mahaprabhu. And Advaita Gosai went and he hid somewhere in the side. Before Ramdas came and offered his obeisances to Caitanya Mahaprabhu, before he could say anything, Mahaprabhu started shouting out, Narai, Narai, Narai, which was the nickname of Advaita Gosai, Advaita, Narai, He is calling out, you come out. I know you are hiding. Why are you trying to avoid me? You come out, come here. So Advaita he was already discovered, he came out followed by Sitarani and he paid his obeisances. He looked up, there he could see the transcendental form of Caitanya Mahaprabhu now is He Nimai Pandit but in full glory manifesting more effulgent than millions of suns, so bright that the whole material world was covered by that jyoti. That brahma jyoti emanating from the Supreme Personality of Godhead in His form as Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. In fact, nothing was visible but the Lord and His eternal paarshadas, His eternal associates. Nityananda, He was holding one umbrella, like this the other associates. Otherwise the whole material world was invisible. There demigods seeing this form of transcendental glory they were worshipping the Lord. Seeing that form again Advaita Gosai offered his obeisances. And Lord Caitanya was chastising him, why were you hiding and put His lotus feet on the head of Advaita Gosai. So in this way the Supreme Lord was called into this material world by His devotees, Advaita Gosai, Haridas Thakur. He came to please His devotees. That Krishna says, paritraanaaya sadhu naam, vinaashayacha dushkrithaam, I come to deliver My devotees and to destroy the demons. But Prabhupad explained that demons can be destroyed by other means. This is not the primary reason. The primary reason is paritraanaaya sadhu naam, to please His devotees. So if even Krishna Himself is dedicated to pleasing His devotees, so much so that He comes in the material world, He manifested His pastimes, then how much, to what extent, how much should we be dedicated to pleasing the transcendental desires of the pure devotee, Srila Prabhupad and the previous acharyas? If Krishna Himself is wanting to satisfy their desires, then that means that practically speaking if we try to fulfill their desires then automatically our success is assured very easily because we will have the full backing of Krishna. If we try to do our own independent program, we may get some temporary effect but spiritually they won’t feel the real energy or force there. So this Krishna consciousness movement therefore is based on this principle of serving the servant of the servant of the servant of Krishna, gopi paada kamalayor daasa daasa daasanudaasa. So because the Supreme Personality of Godhead’s expansion as a devotee, Nityananda Prabhu wanted a temple in Mayapur dham, because this was repeated by the other great devotees and especially Prabhupad who laid the foundation stone we are racing to complete this within our lifetimes within the shortest possible time because we would like to get that mercy of being able to please the devotees, the desires of the pure devotees of the Lord. Similarly, so many other desires have expressed and devotees we are dedicated to satisfying those all over the world. It is like Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur, he wanted that there should be book distribution. Srila Prabhupad said that he had made this International Society for Krishna Consciousness to fulfill the desires of Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur. We don’t have to look back further. Nobody knows when Srila Prabhupad worked with the desires of Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur. And when he told us that he made Iskcon to satisfy those desires we should note that Iskcon is the embodiment, the principle, most effective for satisfying the desires of our previous acharyas. (Jai!) So by that simple people, I remember Prabhupad preaching here in India, they asked where does all your money come from? And of course he wouldn’t be shy, he would tell them that we are distributing this many books every minute. He worked it out, Rs. 60,000 a minute or six lakhs of rupees a minute, he worked it out to the minute and the people would say, it is astonishing. I forget the figure, six lakhs I think per minute, something like that or 60,000. He said somewhere, that one disciple had calculated that somewhere all over the world every moment or seconds one of the literatures of Krishna consciousness is being distributed or maybe more than one a second. Jagatguru Srila Prabhupad ki jai! Actually Hussain Shah, he asked his minister one time, what do you think of this Caitanya Mahaprabhu? And of course the minister was a Hindu so he was afraid that if I say what I feel then maybe he will do something against Caitanya Mahaprabhu, so he said, he is a martyr, a roaming mendicant, has no money or anything, He is just doing some chanting and things and it is nothing important and you don’t need to worry about Him. He kept pressing, no, He is having so many thousands and thousands of people following Him. They tried to play it down because he was a ferocious Mohammadan ruler and he was known even to break down temples when he was going around attacking other princely states. They were trying to protect Caitanya Mahaprabhu. When he was very serious, Hussain Shah said no, you want to know my opinion? I think that this Sri Caitanya, He is non different from Khuda, from Allah. He was astonished. This is coming from the Mullah; he is saying that Caitanya Mahaprabhu is not different from Allah. How could this be? They dare not tread in that area, they were just spellbound, they could not say anything. Hussain Shah continued, he said yes, He must be non-different from Allah, Ishwar. He was saying God, Allah o Akbar. Allah, how can you say that? There is no answer to it. Look at my ministers who have gone and joined Him. So many people, they are going and joining Him. They are working, they are going out seeing Him dancing, forgetting everything, they are surrendering their everything to Him and He doesn’t pay them even one cent! Look at me, I am the emperor of the entire Bengal Gouda but if I didn’t pay my generals, my colonels, my princes, my governors, my tax collectors, my peons, if I didn’t give donations and give gifts to my wives, would there be one person who would stay with me? Nobody! Therefore, Caitanya Mahaprabhu must be, He must be God Himself. Otherwise no one else can get so many people to work, intelligent people, sincere people, to give everything up and simply work. So Bhavananda mahashay, he has expressed to us how another example, Srila Prabhupad has that same potency of Caitanya Mahaprabhu in him to get thousands and hundreds of thousands of people all over the world to take up this Krishna consciousness movement without any material incentive but for pure devotion. So just as Srila Prabhupad, in conclusion, told us that in preaching there were progressions, distributing books, by distributing books, brihad mridanga people are made devotees. Just last night, who was it? Yes, Bhakti Prabhav Swami Maharaj, he told us that like how he was a librarian for a library in Vrndavan in one of the vaishnava libraries and there the Back to Godhead magazine would come and he would wait for the magazine with rapt desire and when it would come he would read the magazine. Of course he was already practicing but to do the preaching later he decided that he should surrender to Srila Prabhupad to serve Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s most intimate desire to help this movement spread. So just as these books they go so many different places, you can’t, I mean, I was interviewing some devotees here in India, how did you become a devotee? And one person he had a tea stall, his uncle owns a paan shop. So the devotees came and gave him one Back to Godhead, Bhagavad Darshan one book in his paan shop and he is there right on the street, but he would be busy selling paan, so he didn’t read the book. He took the book and left it at home. And there one of the children took it and went to the other house nearby, the other relative’s house, and that was where this devotee saw the book and read it. The book went through four different hands before that. He read the book and he said what am I doing here? He just came and surrendered in the temple. Srila Prabhupad’s books ki jai! And in South America and all over the world we hear these transcendental stories. Sometimes people say, well we distribute the books and they sit on the shelves. That also one gentleman said that how he was visiting a relative and saw the book on the shelf and started reading. He said, my goodness, this is what I have been looking for my whole life! So even if the books are sitting on the shelves of the multimillionaires in India, if they are too busy making money to read the books but then their children or other guests may come and read the book. Or sometimes something happens, one millionaire was working like this and his only son met with a car accident and died. So he was totally shocked. His whole value, he was working hard day and night just to give the best to his son. All of a sudden in one flash the whole reason for his living ended. He and his wife were already old and had only one son, they didn’t know what to do. Then they grabbed Prabhupad’s books and started to read and they realized that actually the purpose of life is to serve Krishna, not to work and simply give everything for the son or the daughter. They should get something, you see, they can be given something, but the actual purpose is not simply to work for descendants or for one’s own sense gratification. Now in the modern world people don’t even give their sons in many places. They don’t let their son plunder, they plunder themselves, they disown the son, especially if the son is a devotee! So books were the basic principle, they are the principle and they will continue to be the principle. But as people are becoming devotees, then Prabhupad, his vision was not that just there would be a few devotees practicing, he wanted that Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s movement would be the worldwide movement, that in every town and village it would be practiced, that it would become the world culture. And to do that with various types of people it was necessary to bring them to the standards of being vaishnavas and for those who are on the road to being vaishnavas to engage them in the varnashrama system. We have experienced here in India, one story was there, a man he came and purchased a book from a book table. He didn’t go away, he just sat there next to the book table and read the book, the whole small book from cover to cover. It took him thre four hours and he was blue reading the book. He finished the book and asked a point, said I am convinced. Srila Prabhupad ki jai! I am convinced, I want to become a devotee, tell me what can I do? So pretty amazing, he read the book and he is convinced! Alright I am convinced, this is the Absolute Truth, it hasn’t been clearer than this, all my questions are answered. Now I want to engage in devotional service. How can I engage in devotional service? He was told, well, you can come and live in our temple. He said alright, I am working in the railway station here for 25 years and 5 more years I will get my 30 years pension, I have got my grandmother and my seven girls and five boys and my house and my cows and everything, will they all be taken in the ashram? So knowing the residential crisis in the ashram, so well, it would be better you become a life member. So he said alright I would like to become a life member, then what? He was told, buy another book! What else can I do? There was no other alternative, what else could be done? So I saw this dilemma that we are getting people coming asking to engage them and we couldn’t engage them. But Prabhupad said the whole world can be engaged by Krishna consciousness, so how do we do it? I came to Srila Prabhupad and said, we have this problem. He said, bring them to the temple, train them up and send them back to theirplace and let them make their family, make their village, make their community Krishna conscious. Just like Caitanya Mahaprabhu told so many people to do when He travelled throughout India. So that was the beginning of our Namahatta movement. Today here we have several hundred Namahatta representatives from all over India who have come here for the All India Namahatta Conference after our initiation ceremony in the afternoon, we begin our conference with the Namahatta awards ceremony and although maybe in India people have a lot of sukriti they performed as devotional service in their previous lives or something but I am sure that around the world more and more as people read Prabhupad’s books and become purified through kirtan they are going to be more and more people who are better suited to be engaged in some varnashrama context and to do practical devotional service, preaching in their community. Everyone is not going to be able to live in outdoor temples. This Prabhupad told me personally in 1970 in Los Angles when he told me to go to India on a morning walk all of a sudden he stopped and he just there was no reason, we were just chanting japa and were walking when he just stopped and he just spoke this phrase and said don’t think everybody is going to live in our temples. He said, just like there are so many churches and communities there will be so many Hare Krishna Iskcon temples and there will be many people who are chanting Hare Krishna and they come to the temple for some Sunday or weekend or some function but they are practicing Krishna consciousness in their home. Then he didn’t say any more. He continued japa and kept on walking. And that practically was at the back of my head but never really figured what that instruction meant until this whole situation happened where I could see that if you distribute enough books people will become pious and more and more interested in Krishna consciousness and eventually they want to engage in devotional service. But some of them are more suited towards living this type of brahminical life in a temple and becoming preachers and others are more suited towards some vaishnava type of activity where they make money or grow some crops and they give the crops to the Krishna conscious preachers. So of course we can see now in Europe, America, South America, Africa, in different places this is happening more and more that, Brahmananda maharaj also mentioned how one gentleman came from Nigeria, he was the richest man of Nigeria, he was here in our guest house. Actually people like that, we need them to continue to make money and give it for distributing more books, for building nice temples. There is nothing wrong with that, that is proper yukta vairagya. Prabhupad used to criticize sometimes the wealthy people in India, they decide to renounce the world, they give all their money to their children and grandchildren and they come empty handed to Krishna. Why should they work their whole life and give all that away to their relatives and then come to Krishna, here I am, I am detached, I have nothing! They should come and give something to Krishna, He is the owner. They could do something with that money, uplift other people, why give it for the sense gratification of their relatives? As Rupa and Sanatan did. That way the birthplace of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu temple there was one Sakhicharan Rai, one devotee and he wanted to surrender to Caitanya Mahaprabhu, so he went to Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur and he asked what is the best thing I can do, I want to build this for Mahaprabhu at His birthplace. So he came and he gave his entire wealth to the last paisa, to the last pence, paisa, cent, he gave everything and the whole thing, that’s what helped build the temple. There were some other donations but primarily it was his donation. And then he just renounced in that way and he took up his devotional service and chanting. That was his deity is there at the gateway, he was one of the only disciples given babaji. I can’t preach, I am a business man, I am in the last few years of my life, here I have my wealth, I would like to use it for the upliftment of humanity, what to do? Alright I will build this temple. He did that and he sat there and chanted Hare Krishna. So we all bow down and appreciate this service. So some people may not take babaji, they may continue to make money, that is possible in varnashrama, someone may do so many other services. So I just wanted to bring up that point in conclusion that as we expand our book distribution and our preaching that naturally the whole varnashrama preaching, the whole congregational preaching, whichever congregation he goes, people can be engaged according to their quality and their work in Krishna’s service. They are not all going to have spontaneous devotional service, it may take some time but if people chant Hare Krishna and they will be able to be engaged in devotional service. If they are engaged according to their nature, according to their abilities they will be happy and purified and more and more they will be able to come up to the transcendental position. So that is the actual purpose, so we should rather than serving our children and grandchildren, we should serve our spiritual fathers, grandfathers, great grandfathers in the disciplic succession and that is why Prabhupad said that I am just like a child, sanyasi is like a child and disciples are like parents, they take care. So here Prabhupad is putting himself in our hands in this Samadhi temple so that the whole world in Vrndavan can worship him, take care of him. And he is continuing to put every day himself in our hands, in his vani form, in his books and then we can serve his books by giving those books to people all over the world, so that they can read, become purified and engage themselves in devotional service under the shelter of this wonderful International Society for Krishna consciousness.

Hare Krishna!

Any question?

Question: Inaudible

GM: Yes try to do that and by chanting Hare Krishna, practicing Krishna consciousness, always praying to the spiritual master, previous acharyas, Krishna, to be able to do that, if that is the principal desire in one’s life, well by their mercy the impossible can be possible. Hare Krishna!

Question: Inaudible

GM: Did Caitanya Mahaprabhu ever agree to do deity worship by a lady? His mother did deity worship in her house, Mother Sachi, to Krishna and Balaram. His mother did worship in the house and offered prasadam. In the big temples generally pujaris are there but sometimes if they fall sick the wife may also come in, somehow they have to keep their worship going.

Question: Inaudible

GM: Well if they accept it with respect at least they will be not guilty of the greatest offences, they will be able to advance something. From that the point is of course Caitanya Mahaprabhu’s mood was always as a devotee. Sometimes He fell into this kind of Krishna mood and at that time in His own humor He would have this unusual pastime. But that didn’t happen very often, it was very rare. But just like they are singing out the thousand names of Vishnu when He heard the name of Nrsinghadev He just got into the mood of Nrshingha at that moment and He forgot His devotional mood. Sometimes He was worshipped by Advaita Gosain. When Advaita could see that He was in that mood, other times when Advaita tried to touch His feet, He ran, He said, no no, you are the senior brahmana. So actually I get absorbed, there was a resolution that we should start this year reading from the Caitanya Caritamrita some time every day. Actually I just wanted to start to hear. So that was a very important point that Lord Caitanya, He never would allow Himself to be glorified but on two or three occasions due to falling in some transcendental ecstasy in that particular mood the devotees could actually see that aspect of Lord Caitanya revealed.

Transcribed by: Jayaraseshwari devi dasi

12 June 2016