19890920_Srimad_Bhagavatam.8.3.22-24_Bhaktivedanta_Manor_England (1) The following is a class given by HH Jayapataka Swami Maharaj on September 20, 1989 in Bhaktivedanta Manor, England. The class begins with the reading of the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam Eighth Canto, Chapter 3, Verses 22 - 24: yasya brahmādayo devā vedā lokāś carācarāḥ nāma-rūpa-vibhedena phalgvyā ca kalayā kṛtāḥ

yathārciṣo 'gneḥ savitur gabhastayo niryānti saṁyānty asakṛt sva-rociṣaḥ tathā yato 'yaṁ guṇa-sampravāho buddhir manaḥ khāni śarīra-sargāḥ

sa vai na devāsura-martya-tiryaṅ na strī na ṣaṇḍho na pumān na jantuḥ nāyaṁ guṇaḥ karma na san na cāsan niṣedha-śeṣo jayatād aśeṣaḥ

TRANSLATION: The Supreme Personality of Godhead creates His minor parts and parcels, the jīva-tattva, beginning with Lord Brahmā, the demigods and the expansions of Vedic knowledge [Sāma, Ṛg, Yajur and Atharva] and including all other living entities, moving and non-moving, with their different names and characteristics. As the sparks of a fire or the shining rays of the sun emanate from their source and merge into it again and again, the mind, the intelligence, the senses, the gross and subtle material bodies, and the continuous transformations of the different modes of nature all emanate from the Lord and again merge into Him. He is neither demigod nor demon, neither human nor bird or beast. He is not woman, man, or neuter, nor is He an animal. He is not a material quality, a fruitive activity, a manifestation or non-manifestation. He is the last word in the discrimination of "not this, not this," and He is unlimited. All glories to the Supreme Personality of Godhead!

PURPORT by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda: This is a summary description of the Supreme Personality of Godhead's unlimited potency. That supreme one is acting in different phases by manifesting His parts and parcels, which are all simultaneously differently situated by His different potencies (parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate [Cc. Madhya 13.65, purport]). Each and every potency is acting quite naturally (svābhāvikī jñāna-bala-kriyā ca). Therefore the Lord is unlimited. Na tat-samaś cābhyadhikaś ca dṛśyate: nothing is equal to Him, nor is anything greater than Him. Although He manifests Himself in so many ways, personally He has nothing to do (na tasya kāryaṁ karaṇaṁ ca vidyate), for everything is done by expansions of His unlimited energies.

GM: mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-gurum dīna-tāranam paramānanda mādhavam śrī caitanya īśvaram

So Gajendra was in the most dangerous situation when he was captured by the crocodile. And first he materially tried to struggle with the crocodile, but then after a certain point he realized that it was a hopeless cause. By his own strength he was not going to survive, or be able to defeat the crocodile. Śrīla Prabhupāda explained that the crocodile was an animal – amphibious animal – an animal of the water, so the longer he was staying in the water, he was quite happy, quite well-situated. Whereas Gajendra, being a land animal; although elephants go and bath in the water, they cannot live in the water. He was gradually losing his strength in comparison to the crocodile. So, then finally he decided to take the shelter of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and he began to offer his prayers.

In material life, it’s a habit with conditioned souls to always try and overcome all the different obstacles. But a pious living entity, when they are in distress, they turn to Kṛṣṇa. Four types living entities, four types of pious persons turn to Kṛṣṇa; those who are in economic need, those who are in distress, those who are inquisitive and those who are in knowledge. It’s explained that if somebody just turns to the Lord when they’re in distress, or just turns to the Lord when they’re in need etc. , that they’re only the partial recipients of the Lord’s mercy. The pure devotees are always taking shelter of the Lord, under all circumstances - in failure, in victory; in danger, in success, in all different situations. So, the pure devotees have the mercy of the Lord all the time, whereas others are only partially getting mercy of the Lord, and partially not.

But here, there’s a kind of transformation in the consciousness of Gajendra, where he’s not just praying to be saved from the crocodile, and released again as an elephant so he could continue enjoying his senses. Most people – most pious people – they pray to the Lord when they’re in danger, but when they’re out of danger then they forget. In India, people are naturally pious. And at certain times, you see that naturally when there is some kind of anxiety, then people turn to God. When it’s election time you see even the communist leaders go to the temples and make prayers. This is a well-known fact. (Laughter) Before the final exams, all the students, whereas before they didn’t have any concern with religious affairs, they’re all going to the Sarasvatī Temples and praying for blessings or to different temples so that they can pass the final exam. Many students have come and said, “I’ve jsut taken my final exam, so give me ashīrbad so that I can get a good result.

Of course once the danger or the difficulty is over, then people tend to forget the Lord. And they concentrate on their materialistic activities. But here we see in Gajendra that in the different prayers, that he’s saying that, “If I get out of this danger, then I don’t want to remain in ignorance anymore. I don’t want to remain just in materialistic consciousness anymore. Please bless me that I can actually be not only liberated from this danger, but that I can be liberated from the material ignorance, and that I be situated in Your eternal relationship. This is the special teaching of the Bhāgavat. Bhāgavat philosophy is to take us out of the material ignorance. To take us actually... the full shelter of Kṛṣṇa, eternally, is pure devotional service. When Rūpa and Sanatan met Caitanya Mahāprabhu in Rāmakeli, and Lord Caitanya initiated them and instructed them to join Him later. At that time Rūpa Goswamī could leave earlier and he ... you know how he distributed his wealth ... 50% to the brahmaṇas, Vaiṣnavas and Guru; 25% to his family members and 25% was for an emergency. He kept with some banker. Sanatan Goswamī had a more difficult time getting out. He was staying in his home hearing the Bhāgavatam, calling sick to the Emperor. Finally the Emperor sent his physician , and the physician said that there was nothing wrong with Sanatan Goswami. So then the Emperor suddenly appeared at the house of Sanatan Goswamī, and saw all brahmaṇas reading the Bhāgavatam. Sanatan Goswamī was just hearing the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam. So he said, “Why are you not coming and doing your duties as the Prime Minister? You know, you have to charge of the Government so that I can go out and attack other kingdoms and increase my Empire. He compared himself to a hunter. He was a great warrior, the Hussain Shah. He was busy in increasing his empire, but Sanatan Goswamī refused. He said that now he was not interested in those kinds of (?) activities. So the Emperor became angry. He was afraid that he would run off, so he had him arrested. At that time, when Sanatan Goswamī was also in a difficulty, he was in prison. So, then he didn’t know what to do. So, of course, before, during and after, he is always taking shelter of the Lord. So in that difficulty also, he was taking shelter of the Lord. He got the intelligence what to do. He offered a handsome sum to the jailer, and praised him for being a very pious person and different things. And somehow he was able to make the plan. So he got released. He went with his servant, Ishan. So they kept off the high road and went through various pathways which were through jungles and mountains and things like that – of the path. So in one lodge, one inn, somewhere in a remote area, Sanatana Goswamī took shelter. But the inn-keeper had an astrologer, and the astrologer could understand that Sanatan Goswamī had ... I believe it was seven ... seven or eight ... Seven ... seven gold coins. Actually, Ishan had taken seven gold coins. So the inn-keeper was very friendly to Sanatan, offering him everything – nice room, food. But Sanatan didn’t pay him anything. “So inn-keepers they normally don’t give me anything for free. So why is he being so nice to me?” He started to think. Something was suspicious. So he asked Ishan, “Do you have any gold coins?” He said, “Yes.” He said, “Give them to me.” Ishan gave him six gold coins. And then Sanatan called the inn-keeper and said, “Here, I want to give you these gold coins. You kindly take me out of here. You send me across these mountains, so that I want to get to Benares, and get over this difficult area.” The inn-keeper said, “No. No. Actually, I was going to kill you in the night and take your money, but you’re such a nice person ... So you keep the gold coins, I won’t take them.” Sanatan said, “No. Someone else may kill me for these. If I have nothing, I am safer. You keep them.” Then the inn-keeper said, “Well even my astrologer said that you have seven gold coins but ... It’s alright, you keep the last one.” Or somehow he revealed that he knew how many gold coins he had. Such an expert astrologer! So then Sanatan Goswamī knew that Ishan had kept ... although he said to give everything ... he didn’t, he kept one. By this he could understand that Ishan was having a lot of attachments. He wasn’t ready to surrender, so he told him, “Ok, you go back. You take the gold coin and you go back to your house. I’ll go alone from here.”

So Lord Kṛṣṇa tests at different stages. Devotees ... they’re compelled to surrender, more and more. And become more fixed in devotional service. Depend on Kṛṣṇa more. Totally. It’s like a refining process. I remember one time, Śrīla Prabhupāda, when he was giving a lecture on Queen Kuṇtī, in Māyāpur, and he was talking on the verse niskincana gocara. Kṛṣṇa is only known by those who have nothing. And Śrīla Prabhupāda explained that how wonderful it is to have nothing. And he made a facial expression ... How wonderful it is ... to have nothing. And it was so expressive, it sounded very deep. Having nothing doesn’t mean of course in an external sense, but actually realizing that everything is Kṛṣṇa’s. That there is nothing but Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa’s energy and Kṛṣṇa. That everything is the property of Kṛṣṇa. So nothing belongs to one. When one actually understands that, it’s a very profound realization. We were watching the un-edited video ... one of the Prabhupāda videos, and how Prabhupāda kept stressing this point, that Kṛṣṇa is the proprietor of everything. This should be understood on the international, diplomatic level. That God is the proprietor of everything. It seems like a very simplistic point. People can just like gleam over it, but it’s actually so profound. That is everybody understood that Kṛṣṇa, or God, is the proprietor of everything, then the ecology; then international relations; the differences between North and South; the differences between East and West. It’s like all the different problems which we’re facing every day, the newspapers are filled with these different problems – can be solved, just by applying this principle sarva loka maheśvaram; that Krṣṇa is the proprietor of everything. God is the proprietor of everything. Therefore we should manage things in that consciousness. But because we think, and the material world the human beings think they’re the proprietors of everything, therefore the exploiting nature. Instead of protecting it, they would be exploiting it. And in exploiting it, there’s so many imbalances.

Now people are concerned ... the Greenhouse Effect ... this problem, that problem ... because they’re not considering that everything is the property of Kṛṣṇa. Therefore they should use it in a responsible way. Because they thought it was their property they can do whatever they pleased. Now they’re seeing there’s so many problems coming up, and they have to suffer so many reactions. So, basic formulas given in the Vedas ..."Everything is the property of Kṛṣṇa.” ... are actually so profound when they’re realized and applied, that they can solve all the problems. So Sanatan Goswamī, he could see that Ishan hadn’t come to that realization of completely surrendering to Kṛṣṇa, so he sent him back. And he went on ahead without any money, just depending on Kṛṣṇa. You can say he took sannyasa in a real sense. Of course, he was always completely surrendered, but externally... So when he came to Lord Caitanya, finally reached Lord Caitanya in Benares, Lord Caitanya was so pleased to meet him, He immediately embraced... He embraced Sanatan Goswamī. Śrīla Prabhupāda explained that that was the complete ecstasy of being reunited, just like after a long separation when the gopīs were reunited with Kṛṣṇa, Sanatan Goswamī could finally be reunited with Caitanya Mahāprabhu. It was not different. The ecstasy. In fact, Śrīla Prabhupāda, when he was giving that pastime in ... I believe it was in ... sitting in that place where Hanumān Poddar is? ... (Devotee: Gorukpur) ... Gorukpur. Rādhā-Mādhava in Māyāpur were travelling with him at the time. He himself became so absorbed in the ecstasy, he couldn’t speak. He just got choked up, and tears were pouring from his eyes, and for about 4-5 minutes, there was just silence. And then finally, with a broken voice, he said, “Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.” Just by explaining the pastimes of Lord Caitanya and Sanatan Goswamī, Śrīla Prabhupāda was experiencing the same ecstasy himself. So that is the special mercy of the Holy Name, of the Bhāgavatam. That if we really, with purified consciousness can concentrate and hear the names, hear the teachings of the Bhāgavatam, we can experience the similar ecstasies. The ecstasy or the realization of pure devotional service is like a vast sky. According to each bird’s capacity, they can fly high in the sky. Some eagles are there, they can fly miles high. Some sparrows, they can only fly a few hundred yards. So according to one’s capacity, they can realize or experience. It’s like some fish can go deep in the ocean, some can only go on the top. But everyone can experience some nectar if they give their full consciousness and attention.

So in this teaching of Gajendra ... how an ordinary, material, dangerous situation was transformed into a catalyst or an impetus for Gajendra to take the full shelter of Kṛṣṇa; of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and then how he was delivered. So, similarly, in all the different things that may happen in each of our lives, we need to take everything that happens as an opportunity to surrender to Kṛṣṇa more. Whether it’s a danger or whether it’s a success. Māyā will give us always reasons why to become bitter, why to become materialistic... Right? If we’re doing sankirtan/ book distribution, if we have a good day, Māyā can give us an impetus to say, “You’re such a great devotee. You’re so wonderful. You’re so expert. This that. You’re better than everybody.” And get puffed up. The next day we don’t do so good and, “Just see this devotional service is no good. You should go back home and quit, and things are better.” Or if we do good, we can hear the words of the Bhāgavatam, and the Guru and the Vaiṣnavas, that, “This is simply the mercy of Guru and Kṛṣṇa. Although I am most insignificant, most fallen but somehow by Their mercy I was able to act as an instrument, and Kṛṣṇa’s mercy could pass through me and these conditioned souls could take Kṛṣṇa’s mercy in the form of transcendental literature.” Or, if the distribution didn’t go so well, “Oh, how I’m not surrendered, how because I’m so fallen I am not able to act as an instrument. I should surrender more. I should become more determined in my devotional service.” Everything that happens, we can go either way. We can go Māyā’s way, or we can go Kṛṣṇa’s way. So, through the intelligence, through these important teachings, just how Gajendra, he used the situation to shelter of Kṛṣṇa, similarly we should use every circumstance that happens to just surrender more and more to Kṛṣṇa. Sometimes it takes a very heavy situation, like the one of Gajendra where it is a life-and-death circumstance to force one to surrender and become serious about devotional service. Why should we wait for such a difficult situation? There is danger at every step. Better to surrender right away. Why delay?

So these teachings are ... Śrīla Prabhupāda said, “More intelligent person learns by seeing others.” If everybody is going outside and getting wet in the rain, then the intelligent person won’t go out without an umbrella, “I’ll get wet.” If there’s an epidemic going around and everyone’s getting sick, the intelligent person would take the necessary precautions to not get sick. So, Māyā is very active. She’s always trying to attack. She’s always attacking. Until we get out of this material body, Māyā’s there, waiting to influence us. We can’t expect to be free from Māyā’s suggestions as long we are in this material world. But by studying the books, the lessons of Śrīla Prabhupāda, the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam, Caitanya Caritāmṛta etc., we can distinguish what are Māyā’s suggestions and ignore those suggestions. Reject them. We can learn to distinguish what is Kṛṣṇa suggesting, what the words of sādhu, Guru and Vaisnava ... Huh, sāstra, sādhu, Guru ... and accept those instructions. In this way, we can cross over all the difficulties, because Kṛṣṇa is transcendental to everything material. That’s the point in this verse. Whatever there is in the material world, it’s coming from Kṛṣṇa. It will go back again into Kṛṣṇa. So Kṛṣṇa is existing before the material world, He is existing after. He’s is transcendental. So, by depending on Kṛṣṇa, we are transcendental to the material situation.

So Gajendra has come to that conclusion. Rather than depending on the big elephant body; rather than depending upon any material situation, he’s now simply surrendering to Kṛṣṇa. That, “You’re the only one worthy of depending on. Everything else is going to be finished, even Brahmā, even the whole universe. You’re there eternally, so I’m taking shelter of You.” Big boxing champions say “I’m the greatest, and then later on they become... can’t even speak properly, can’t walk properly because their brain has been smashed so much by boxing gloves. Then the new greatest comes... In material life, this is the illusion. Everyone is trying to make their gold medal Olympic, make the big champion, become a big politician, but everything has it’s time. After some time, things change. Someone gave the kind of graphic example of...I can’t remember in what context... but I remember someone gave the graphic example of worms crawling on top of each other, and one worm gets to the top of the pile, and then after a while he gets pulled down by the others and another worm comes up. So all these things are recorded in daily newspapers with great accuracy... great enthusiasm, but the Lord is eternally above all of these struggles in the material world, and people need to be conscious of Him. And that’s the duty of the devotees, is their bringing this consciousness to people. They don’t have this consciousness. They’re very much focussed on the struggle in the material world. So they need, like Gajendra, to come to understand that sometimes you’re going to win, sometimes you’re going to lose...but if you take shelter of Kṛṣṇa you’re the real winner. You’re the real victor. Because Kṛṣṇa is the only one who can give the complete shelter, no-one else. And one who has the complete shelter of Kṛṣṇa, his life is already a success. While he’s living he is under Kṛṣṇa’s shelter, and he’s in the ecstasy of the sankirtan movement, relishing the devotional service to Kṛṣṇa. And when he leaves this material body, then he goes back to Kṛṣṇa and serves Kṛṣṇa eternally. So, living or dying, everything is perfect. Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare, Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare.

Any questions?

Q: (Indistinct) GM: Of course, great mystic yogīs, they could go to Yamaraj and ask him. That’s how one yogī didn’t feel happy, so he cursed him to come down as a sūdra, who became Vidūra. But you don’t directly have that communication. We know philosophically that long as we have a material body, there’s certain karmas or certain momentum, although the karmas of devotees are ended. No new karmas are added, but that there’s a certain momentum continuing on, connected with the body. On the one side, for spiritual masters then, in addition to whatever karmas their body might have, they take disciples. Some disciples don’t follow strictly, they have to be responsible for the karmas of the disciples. Prabhupāda, when he was in Vrndāvan 1977, I remember he held up his very emaciated, thin hand and he said, “This is because I took too many unqualified disciples I have to become sick like this. I took disciples and they didn’t follow.” So, philosophically we can understand why ... different reasons why ... where they personally, in the case of a Guru ... one who has taken disciples ... why they could suffer different situations of external suffering. Even sometimes Prabhupāda said he got sick, he said that this was so that the disciples would become... what was the exact words? I don’t know if I can remember the exact words... My brain’s not fully clear. But I can just kind of paraphrase it. Maybe somebody else can remember the exact words. But the gist of it was that by being sick that would force the devotees to take care of him, and give them an opportunity to kind of surrender more and serve him. Sometimes devotees get on the mental platform and the spiritual master gets sick, they can get off the mental platform and get to the practical platform of surrendering. We don’t know...Ultimately, Kṛṣṇa by one action He can do so many things. We can see things, we can analyze. I don’t think there’s any end to it, you know. Like we’re discussing, some devotees think,“Well this is, kind of... exhibited certain needs that exist in the Spanish Yatra.” Some people analyze, “Well this is...” Of course, I personally got many realizations, going through this. It’s like practically dying and being re-born. It’s practically the last thing I can remember...I just...It’s practically like dying, before I went in the operation. When I was in the operation room, it practically felt like I was just...I just...thinking of Kṛṣṇa and dying. And then coming out of it was practically like a re-birth because I was in Intensive Care so I was completely like a baby. Didn’t have any control over my motor movements, over my eyes or over anything. And I was being taken care of like a baby. And then gradually coming, in the next few days, like going through the span of years in a matter of days, you know. Going from an infant the first day to one .... Like every day was a year, or two or three or four or whatever. But imagine it could be analyzed from so many different perspectives, perspective of ISKCON; perspective of leadership.

Kṛṣṇa achieves many things with one action, so it’s very difficult to isolate and say, “Well, this is the reason.” Because you could say that for about twenty different things, and maybe all of them are right. Or maybe some of them are not right. Maybe they’re speculative. It depends on how expert is in analyzing philosophically the different things that happen. Sivaram Maharaj and Tamal Kṛṣṇa Maharaj, when they came on Rādhāstami, they had many realizations, philosophical realizations, things which I may have been more subjective, but they saw from another point of view, different angle. I got a letter from Maharaj, Nanda Svarup Maharaj(?). He had some realizations in the letter which had a very profound effect on me when I was in the hospital. So different devotees ... I’m sure it’s not ... because Kṛṣṇa, He can achieve so many things with one action. How can you say whether this is the reason? It may be one of the reasons. So we have to ultimately take that what happens ... that Kṛṣṇa permitted it to happen. There may be many reasons why He permitted it to happen, and just take the positive benefit out of it. Learn from the negative aspects, learn from the positive aspects, learn from every aspect of it and ... Some devotees say that their faith in Kṛṣṇa was brought into question. I don’t think that that’s ... we should never question Kṛṣṇa or lose our faith. Kṛṣṇa was very kind on me that I didn’t lose consciousness, I could remain conscious despite of ... And somehow in spite of the pain and everything, I didn’t lose consciousness and I didn’t forget Him. The thing is that we don’t forget Kṛṣṇa. So in the face of difficulty, but somehow Kṛṣṇa gave His causeless mercy, although I have no devotional purity, but so He was kind enough to allow me to remember Him, and pray to Him. Because that’s the ultimate test, whenever we leave the body, if we can somehow remember Kṛṣṇa... I hope... Somehow ... I’m here...I’m still living in this body... I just hope that whenever I have to leave this body I can remember Kṛṣṇa. The Vasinavas bless me that I can remember Kṛṣṇa then. We don’t know what’s going to happen. Some devotees, whether they leave by cancer, or they leave by old age or whether it’s falling asleep at the driving wheel because you’re not careful. You know, we have to learn to become more and more conscious of Kṛṣṇa at every circumstance. Now Kṛṣṇa consciousness is a worldwide movement. When this happened it was flashed all over the world. There are crazy people who don’t like Kṛṣṇa consciousness spreading in the West. It’s surprising there hasn’t been more attacks on Hare Kṛṣṇa leaders or swamis. This person didn’t even know. He just a visitor. He didn’t know about Gurus yet. He just knew swamis. He was out to get a swami. I was the big swami, so. He tried to get some other swamis when he was there. He’d offer to drive to the airport and different places, but everybody refused. So I guess he got desperate. I was like the last swami visiting, so this was his last chance. There weren’t any other swamis around, so... The doctors said if it had been another swami with not such a big neck... (Laughter)...probably wouldn’t have survived. But there are many crazy people, and if they’re going to go after swamis maybe we have to have a special “Swami Corps” (Laugher) to protect the swamis. Prabhupāda was concerned about being kidnapped, about being attacked. In the last few years he had bodyguards. He said when Māyāpur was attacked they were looking for him, they wanted to eliminate him. He was concerned. We and him were very concerned. We had been kind of living a happy-go-lucky life, travelling everywhere. Everyone is travelling. Nobody’s really concerned but ... who knows now? As more and more Kṛṣṇa consciousness expands, the anti-cult people are becoming also more and more outspoken. So this affects some people. I know from George Harrison, and these movie stars when they travel around, they’re always in fear for their lives, especially after they killed John Lenon. George Harrison said we’ll come to Māyāpur but if you don’t tell anybody. And then he was ... he was just revealing how...I’ve mentioned how he got discovered when we were in Bangkok. He said that he always checks in in the name of his bodyguard, but somehow somebody just could recognize him or spot him... then all the charities come to get him to do charity benefit. You know, everybody wants the movie, you know, the rock and roll stars to do a charity benefit, then they can make a... Just as we got Anup Jalota to come, they want George Harrison or some rock and roll singer to do a benefit concert to earn some big money. So immediately he had to leave because along with the benefit people are crazy people. They want to become famous for killing some big movie star or something. So who knows? So many people, more and more as Kṛṣṇa consciousness becomes prominent, can be more dangerous for the leadership. I don’t know how the world body is going to address the problem. It seems that the problem has to be addressed. Because this person... very intelligent. He says... had three knives... he says when he gets out, each knife is has a destination in ISKCON. Of course he had seven knives. Seven or nine, that he offered to Kṛṣṇa on Janmastami. He got a rose bush and he stuck the knives around the rose bush and offered it to Kṛṣṇa. So who knows how many... There’s crazy people out there. But they’re very intelligent. He’s very planning, this person. Who knows if there’s more like him, or if he’s got some people behind him? So externally we also have to also .... You know we see Kṛṣṇa behind everything, but externally we have to also take precautions against attacks of demons. Just like here, we’re working so hard against this Heshmere(?) Council. The politics trying to close the Manor, but we have to do so many things; meetings and public things, we have to go to court. It’s not that we just say, “Kṛṣṇa will take care.” We have to also take care for Kṛṣṇa. We’re trying to protect Kṛṣṇa’s temple. Ultimately we’re depending on Kṛṣṇa’s mercy, but it’s our service to protect Kṛṣṇa’s temple, to keep the preaching going. It’s like that.

Not only get kicked, sometimes have some mercy. Take shelter of Kṛṣṇa. Like a little baby walks away from the parents and then suddenly looks around, doesn’t see the parents, gets scared, starts crying, runs back to the parents. Like that sometimes we get away from Kṛṣṇa, Māyā can also be a mercy to help us to surrender to Kṛṣṇa. In this Gajendra pastime, the attack of the crocodile was an impetus for Gajendra to surrender to Kṛṣṇa. We should surrender without such impetus, but sometimes we need Māyā to remind us that we have to take shelter of Kṛṣṇa. When She does that, that’s also mercy.

Q: (Indistinct) GM: She has a dual role. She can go both ways. That’s why the devotees, by giving spiritual intelligence, then when they can see things in the proper spiritual perspective, then Māyā’s role becomes very conducive for being Kṛṣṇa conscious. But when we’re in total ignorance, then Māyā is keeping us... That’s not Māyā’s only definition. Māyā also means to forget Kṛṣṇa. You know, “that which is not.” So the way we can see Māyā’s mercy is when we’re Kṛṣṇa conscious. So we need that Kṛṣṇa conscious intelligence, then we can see even Māyā as an energy of Kṛṣṇa. Just as Śrīla Prabhupāda said when the devotee goes back to Kṛṣṇa, then even Māyā is standing offering her respects, “Congratulations!”

Q: (Indistinct) GM: No, a devotee’s ... what are the qualities of a devotee... kindness, compassion, para dukha dukhi, can be sad to see others’ suffering. So devotees are very compassionate. Someone else is suffering they’re always helping, comforting, preaching, giving good association. Not like, “You’re getting what you deserve.” A devotee, philosophically, may consider like that themselves, but the other devotees they’re always comforting, preaching. Lord Caitanya, He was so concerned when Haridās Ṭhākur was sick, He went to see him. He told Haridās Ṭhākur, “You don’t have to chant all your rounds.” He told him so many things. But devotional service is personal. Lord Caitanya showed so much compassion. Kṛṣṇa shows so much compassion when His devotee is attacked. When Haridās Ṭhākur was being whipped in the 22 market places, Kṛṣṇa Himself came and took the beating. So Kṛṣṇa has so much compassion for the devotee, and what to speak of His devotees, who are the mercy representation of Kṛṣṇa? Vaisnavas are personified mercy. Devotees of course they are Kṛsṇa conscious, it’s not just some kind of mundane sentiment. They can see things. They also help to preach and keep a person in the paramapara Kṛṣṇa conscious perspective. Keep out of becoming angry, bitter, in illusion or overly materially attached. At the same time, they help. Last question?

Q: (Indistinct) GM: Ok. Maharajas, any comments? Kṛṣṇa das Swami?

Hare Kṛṣṇa! Śrīla Prabhupāda ki jaya!!!

Transcribed by Caitanya Caraṇa dāsa (Śrī Māyāpur)