Everything that happens with Krishna is all good.

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapataka Swami on October 1st , 1985 at New Talavan,Carriere Mississippi .The class begins with a reading from the Srimad-Bhagavatam, 7th canto, chapter 1 , text 3.

iti naḥ sumahā-bhāga nārāyaṇa-guṇān prati  saṁśayaḥ sumahāñ jātas tad bhavāṁś chettum arhati  TRANSLATION: O greatly fortunate and learned brāhmaṇa, whether Nārāyaṇa is partial or impartial has become a subject of great doubt. Kindly dispel my doubt with positive evidence that Nārāyaṇa is always neutral and equal to everyone.

So, as is customary with many other chapters of the Srimad Bhagavatam, they begin with various questions which are addressed in the sense Parikshit Maharaj is addressing these questions to Sukadev Goswami. Since the Lord and previous incarnations has apparently helped Lord Indra and defeated the asuras and naturally the doubt will come up whether the Lord is impartial. It seems that he takes the side of His devotees and works against the asuras or the non devotees. So then is God really impartial? Is he neutral? or is it actually that he is taking sides? So, well this can be answered from various angles because commonly we know that actually Krishna is neutral but He reciprocates according to how different persons approach Him. For instance, in Bhagavad Gita He describes, ye yathā māṁ prapadyante tāṁs tathaiva bhajāmy aham (BG 4.11) according to how people worship Him similarly he reciprocates with them and worships them. So those who worship Him with hate, enmity such as some of the asuras wanted to kill him then he reciprocates with them and kills them and those devotees who worship Him with devotion and with faith, He reciprocates and He protects them and He gives them His love since those devotees are giving their love to Him. Someone would say well, although He is answering the prayers of the respective people accordingly but one person is getting slain by the Lord and the other person is getting embraced. But then in one sense is it still equal and this has been answered today by Srila Prabhupad in the purport that because the Lord is absolute even if He kills somebody they achieve liberation. So no matter what benediction he gives to someone even if it appears materially to be harsh ultimately everything He does is all good and thus no one is a loser. In fact anything you do with Krishna you come out ______ (5.12). Just like there are some people and anything you do with them everything comes according to astrological science, there are some people called makundas (5.27) anything you do with that people comes out to be a total wipeout. In fact if you see them as the first thing when you get up in the morning the rest of the day is supposed to be a total bummer or total kind of a horrible thing. There is a story about you know this , it is kind of off the topic but, it is kind of interesting, it is the kind of Gopal ______( 5.53) that touches on _______( 5.55) that one time the King he woke up looked out of his room and just saw beneath his palace there was the house of Gopal. He is a courtier. He looked to him and the very first person he saw that morning when he got up, rubbed his eyes, opened his eyes, there is Gopal in his veranda. And he said you know, “Hello Gopal, how are you?” So then Gopal said,”Maharaj, please accept my namaskar. My obeisances to you. So then, that day the king was being shaved and for the first time his barber cut him. Seventeen years the barber had been shaving him. And that day he got cut. Seventeen years he had never been cut. So then king decided that the very first person I saw today was Gopal. Actually he must be one of this Makundas. Having him in my kingdom is causing so many people misfortune. They are waking up and seeing him and their whole days are being ruined. So I should save all the people from suffering and have him beheaded. So he called Gopal and told him, “You are going to be beheaded.” Gopal said “Why? My Lord! Of course you are the King whatever you want to do no one can argue but could you kindly tell me why?” And then the king said, explained that the barber said “I have never cut anyone ever in the seventeen years. Just today I cut, it is an amazing thing.” So the king explained that this is the thing that has happened. So I have come to the conclusion that you must be a Makunda. So therefore you have to, it is not Mukunda it is Makunda they are different. So therefore, I am going to have you beheaded and save my kingdom from having to have your inauspicious presence. So then Gopal said, “Well then there is someone else who should also get the same fate. I shouldn’t be the only one. There is someone who is a greater Makunda than me.” “Who is that?” ”So, well my Lord, the very first person that I saw today when I woke up was you and I am about to be beheaded. So the king thought ________ (8:50) so of course there may be people who create bad influences but the Lord He is just the opposite. Everything that happens with Krishna is all good. Even Putana, the witch , she came to kill Krishna by giving poison on her breast , because Krishna sucked her breast like a mother although He sucked her life , He promoted Her to the spiritual realm to be His own mother in the spiritual world. And like this Krishna is so kind that even if a demon offers some nice service, then he reciprocates and gives them sarupya, salokya or some appropriate liberation. So actually the Lord is impartial. But some people are approaching Him in a particular mood and that is also one of His rasas. One of the seven temporary rasas is chivalry. So chivalry is manifested when you are fighting with someone and hardly can he fight with His devotees very often. So in the material world sometimes He comes and He fights with the demons and in this way He gets to relate on the chivalrous temporary rasa and satisfy that particular desire. Those demons are actually liberated for being aspiring partner with the Lord. So they actually are the benefactor of the Lord’s mercy. In fact in some cases those demons get liberated. While Indra, all he gets back his heavenly planets, after he dies he may not get liberation. His extension as a trustee of the prison house in a very exalted position has just been extended with privileges. But still he has not been granted ______( 11:05). Just instead of having to be behind the bars in the lower planets , He is able to roam around with little freely in the upper offices of the prison house. So actually we see that in the case of Chitraketu when he took rebirth as an asura, according to the curse of mother Parvati , that time he took birth as Vrtrasura. At that time actually he was still Krishna conscious even though he took appearance as a demon. So actually he was able to achieve pure Krishna consciousness. While Indra was only able to achieve a little bit of security in his Kingdom. So actually Krishna said that _______(12:05) it was Vrtrasura who was more blessed. He got the bigger benediction than Indra. So this happened because the demigods are devotees but they are devotees with material desire. Those who have material desires then Krishna reciprocates and gives them a comfortable situation. That is why it is dangerous sometimes that a devotee in the Krishna conscious movement if they become due to some association with fruitive workers, if they become attached with the idea having a very comfortable situation, even if that becomes a predominating desire in their lives, then as a result when they leave their body their desire hasn’t been totally? Transformed into pure devotion then they may get a very comfortable situation as a devotee in heavenly planets. And in fact apparently Srila Prabhupad said that there are many of these disciples who will take birth in the heavenly planets. This is something we have to guard against is to accept whatever Krishna gives not that we artificially take up unnecessary austerities but to accept what comes easily and not become overly preoccupied with simply having a very comfortable situation lest we think of that is the goal of life rather that actually developing our pure love for Krishna. It’s hard to find the middle to find some people are very unnecessarily engaged in dry austerities and you find other devotees are seem to be preoccupied with having a very comfortable situation to the extent that it becomes the predominating ______(14:07) more than the desire to expand the Krishna consciousness movement or to engage in pure devotional service. So these things have to be equalized and ___________ (14;22) basically what comes along naturally without an over endeavor and very carefully focusing the consciousness in Krishna’s service. So Krishna is actually the supreme neutral and equal but we can take advantage of His equality, by approaching Him in a mood of surrender. Unfortunately that sometimes our mood of surrender may not be so perfect. Therefore we may not be actually be qualified to get the full type of reciprocation from Krishna. Therefore some of the great devotees they had hoped and wished that Krishna wouldn’t be so equal. That he would be more merciful and out of His own initiative would actually give that mercy but Krishna in His form as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, He is obliged to be impartial but in His form as devotee, when He appeared as Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, taking on the colour and mood the of Radha Rani then, since the devotee is actually always glorifying Krishna and always telling the fallen souls, worship Krishna, surrender to Krishna. So as a devotee the Lord had manifested that quality of actually trying to deliver all the fallen souls, so therefore the devotees glorify Lord Chaitanya that he is even more merciful than Krishna. Although He is Krishna but He is Krishna in a more merciful form. namomahā-vadānyāya kṛṣṇa-prema-pradāyate kṛṣṇāyakṣṇa-caitanya- nāmne gaura-tviṣe namaḥ ( CC,Madhya 19.53) So although Krishna offered every one sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja (BG 18.66), it wasn’t only meant for Arjuna as Prabhupad mentions here for every living entity living within this universe. But there are so many living entities who didn’t surrender to Krishna. Apart from Sisupal, Jarasandha and others who were fortunate enough to die in the presence of the Lord there are so many other souls other demons and other persons who didn’t surrender to Krishna although He was present. So that’s their misfortune because they had the opportunity. Just like governer17:09) one time there was, you know how devotees are sometimes kind of just being trained as Brahmanas or something. In ancient tradition , the Brahmanas were never to be regulated by the kings , sometimes the devotees think that they are not in the twentieth century but they are Brahmanas living in the Dvapara Yuga or something and they tend to neglect certain legal legalities or the laws of the land so on and so forth which appeared them to be rather trivial or materialistic like in India this happened when the devotees neglected to ,one particular devotee, there were many devotees who just kind of overstay their visas. They wouldn’t bother to going in time. They kind of took the people for granted. So there was a new officer, he decided that he was going to make a devotee an example. So the next was actually Gopal Swami. He went down to the, about two weeks later after his visa had expired he went down to the office and person became so impatient with him, then he decided to make an example out of him, had him arrested for not having applied for a visa extension within the appropriate time. So this was pretty shocking because no one had ever been arrested before especially just for being over extended on a visa_______( 18;40) that it was simply as an example they didn’t want the devotees or anyone to just take these things lightly. They have to follow the letter of the law. So then he was, I was present at the court room and that was a lady judge and she was for some reason very heavy and she also just got into the whole mood and said you know, “Well we are just going to take this as a, you know as an example or something like that, everyone has to follow the law”. She followed the prosecutors’ arguments. They don’t have juries there. Anyway she gave the verdict. “Seven days of rigorous imprisonment. Breaking the rock!So she had rigorous imprisonment which meant you know the worst standard of imprisonment because sometimes you get kind of A class of prison where they give you nice bed, nice private room and everything, In spite of being give rigorous imprisonment, in the prison house the people were very nice. They gave him A class room anyway and we got permission to bring him Prasadam every day. At least they gave that permission. But it turned out that two days after he was in the prison it turned out to be Aurobindo’s birthday. Aurobindo apart from being a famous yogi, he was a freedom fighter and he was a journalist and a lawyer and so on. He got arrested by the British and when he was in prison that’s when he became a yogi. This is how he had a talk with all the prisoners. It was a good place to practice devotional service because there are not so many distractions. Well actually Aurobindo’s spiritual life began in the prison. So he was in the prison for quite a bit of time. So because he was considered like kind of a martyr or great freedom fighter and so on for India’s independence, on his 100th anniversary of his birth, the Governor went to all prison and anyone who wanted apart from serious murders just the normal like people that had some misdemeanors _____________ ( 20:57) they all got pardoned as a kind of like a benediction of Aurobindo you know they handed down through the parampara. So the Governor came there and naturally Gopal Swami took advantage and he got freed after two days and so many other hundreds of people got freed. So when Krishna came in this planet and anyone who took surrendered to Him on that occasion they could get freed. The governor came to the prison house and anyone who wanted it, they could get free. I mean they were stupid who didn’t want to stay there ,well it is another thing but generally speaking everyone even if they didn't want, actually they are if they didn't ask for something first of all ,alright they can go because they were not major criminals or any. So in this way so many people were released. So some people died in Krishna’s presence and they got liberation, those who surrendered they could get His eternal association or Samipya and achieve pure love. They were able to get Krishna. But there were so many who didn’t take advantage of that. So many hardened criminals who were too hard to take advantage of that visit of the Lord. They were too demoniac. And their hearts weren’t melted. So lord Chaitanya came, Krishna came in His form as Chaitanya , then all there hardened criminals , instead of just killing them he would melt their hearts, he would make them devotees and give them Krishna prema. So in this way he killed the demoniac nature and he would give them the perfection of life. So therefore namo mahā-vadānyāya, there is no greater charitable person more than Lord Chaitanya. He is giving the greatest gift so freely. Actually Lord Chaitanya’s movement is still present on this planet and handed down through disciplic succession and by chanting the Holy name (jaya) sri-krishna-caitanya prabhu nityananda sri-advaita gadadhara srivasadi-gaura-bhakta-vrinda, by worshipping Sri Sri Gaur Nitai, we can get their mercy. This is brought now all over the west by Srila Prabhupad’s mercy. Therefore we have this opportunity of getting Lord Chaitanya’s mercy. Even though we may be criminals, in the karmic sense ,we may have had so many demoniac natures before being a devotee. Even those things which are not fully purified yet after having initially surrendered ,but by the mercy of Lord Chaitanya all these can be purified and we can actually achieve pure devotional service. So this is very special mercy of Lord Chaitanya. We should understand that Krishna has offered this opportunity to everybody. Even today we can surrender to Him. There is a shortcut, if for any reason we are finding that our surrender is not at the par, not at the proper level , we should take more and more shelter of Lord Chaitanya because by His mercy we can actually be naturally made into a surrendered soul unto Krishna , into a Krishna premi or someone who has love for Krishna . This is Lord Chaitanya’s, Lord Nityananda’s special mercy. By the mercy of Nitai – Gaur we can get the mercy and the pure devotional service of Radha, Radha Kanta. It is actually devotees of Radha Krishna, are there in Vrindavan you see. The devotees of Lord Chaitanya are simultaneously both devotees of Radha Krishna and Lord Chaitanya and they simultaneously participate in both the pastimes, the pastimes of Lord Chaitanya in Svetadvipa, the Navadvip in the spiritual world and the pastimes of Radha Govinda, Radha Radhakanta in Goloka Vrindavan. This is a special benediction of being a devotee of Lord Chaitanya. It becomes easy to get the mercy of Lord Krishna when we approach through Lord Chaitanya and His devotees. (jaya) sri-krishna-caitanya prabhu nityananda sri-advaita gadadhara srivasadi-gaura-bhakta-vrinda Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare So, thank you very much for allowing me to visit you here new Talavan, special pilgrimage place for Srila Prabhupad has performed His pastimes. All the devotees here are all auspicious. So by seeing their bright faces, today my day will be all auspicious. The more than my day. Because according to Vedic tradition there was a reception and although it is not required or in anyway, see actually the spiritual master is the spiritual master for Prabhupad’s grand children not for the God brothers or God sisters. The god brothers or god sisters themselves may at any time get Srila Prabhupad’s mercy and take on responsibilities in the future for carrying on the disciplic succession. But sometimes God brother or God sister either out of respect for the representative of the parampara or Vaishnava or just to show example to other devotees sometimes they participate in most ceremonies although it is not compulsory. So it is bit embarrassing for a peer, for a God brother. Although in Prabhupad’s presence there were senior god brothers there were senior god sisters they were always in that mood which I’m sure should continue even in the grand disciples of Prabhupad. But one should take advantage of any experience the older God bother or God sister has and how to render devotional service better. Today of course it is on a God brother, God sister reciprocation. In any case I’m deeply moved by the unity and the family spirit here in New Talavan project and I hope that the family keeps on growing more and more so that more people can take shelter. We have seen that for instance in some of our bigger projects around the world, like in New Vrindavan, they have been able to create a spiritual community which in itself has performed and is performing great preaching. So this is also our objective. Prabhupad wanted us to have a spiritual community. I know that when Prabhupad was in India that time Balavanta Prabhu had written to him about, that he had just procured some farms and Prabhupad wrote in that time he wanted to have a kind of a very dynamic example of a Varnashrama system, of a devotional system and that New Talavan could be developed in that way to be to house, I think he said ten or twenty thousand devotees. In India anyway we have 600 acres .So he said we can easily have 20,000 devotees. To this day we haven’t figured out exactly how, but Prabhupad had the vision and here 1600 and so then according to that acres or may they don’t have a equal growing season (30: 18) maybe 25 to 50,000 people could be ( laughs) envisioned here. We will lose this rural aspect of ----------( 30:28). In any case there is big scope for giving shelter to so many devotees. That was Prabhupad’s vision. And I was always a, I had a personal realization once seeing Prabhupad do different projects. It t wasn’t that every project was exactly the same. But that Prabhupad had different strategies for different projects. Like in Mayapur he always said “I want here a spiritual city” and then a little known project ,I mean I don’t little known for the people around the world but nonetheless it was the project that Prabhupad visited once or twice and that was at Haridaspur. There Prabhupad said this is a very nice village. Here the people are devoted. Haridas thakur was here. So he said build the temple and you make this an example, a prototype of an existing village that becomes Krishna conscious. Like moving into a, just the opposite of what they did in ________.( 31;44) they moved in and kicked out all the old people, they didn’t make them you know , followers as such. In fact it just came as we just drove in here, it came on the way view, that they just burnt all their Bibles. And then he is declared that he is not a Bhagavan. He is just an ordinary man and that he has just come to help people out. It is not a religion. Its said that the ----it is already very interesting. You may have to pay tax. ? I don’t know what that has to do but in any case Prabhupad, he had a different vision. In Haridaspur his vision was to alright you come here, you set up this temple, you develop this temple as an ancient shrine and you make a perfect ideal village from an existing village. In Mayapur there was nothing there I mean there was the land we have is barren I mean not barren but it is an empty land and used just for agriculture. He wanted a city to be built there. So in one place he wanted to build the city and other place he wanted to transform a village into a Krishna conscious one. Then in another place, in Hyderabad farm there his vision was here, we will make our own villages. It is a barren land, there is no one out there, he said we will build the villages, we will bring the people in and our church and we will give them what will be there in this village , they will each have a house, they will be able to do their own gardening and the produce they will give to the deities and in return there will be some areas which should be fine by a core of devotees who are dedicated , who are the central administration , under the central administration they all grow the grains with the big machines that are not labor intensive but machine intensive , they give the vegetables which are labor intensive and they get the grains , they get the Prasadam depending on how, he didn’t give all the details but again he had some idea of building up villages and in a different way, a kind of a reciprocal , a bartering system almost reciprocal, reciprocation of different people doing different things. I am sure that, Prabhupad said that these two three examples that I experiences and I know that other devotees, they must really be able to add other examples, that how for different projects, in different places, Prabhupad had a different vision. It would be very interesting here in Talavan too , discuss on the topic that what was Prabhupad’s vision here , not that we have to be a stereotype and just copy the other people’s programmes but then try to understand what was Prabhupad’s idea for this type of project. Maybe just same as another project, not that we have to you know for the sake of being different you don’t have to be different but may be the same or may not be, neither here or there ? What I mean is to actually understand what is the way in which we could serve Prabhupad is? His desire so what he is given is the general scope then too according to this time place and circumstance to develop things in a way of course I know this is what has been going on already so , I’m just saying that this is – very auspicious way of doing things and I am agreeing with that the programme or developing a project like that. So _____ ( 35:51) we are required to do things which are pleasing to Prabhupad, which are pleasing to the spiritual masters and the disciplic succession. Then naturally things start to develop in a very favorable way. The more that we satisfy the previous Acaryas, the more that Krishna’s mercy and empowerment comes down. Just look at Abhimanyu. Abhimanyu was a sixteen year old child. So in one point of view, he was hardly of age to fight with such stalwart of warriors like Bhishma, Duryodhana and Dronacarya and others. But because he was empowered by various blessings of great devotees and Brahmanas. Because he had already studied under a great teacher , although he wasn’t fully complete, he was nonetheless be able to do which no one else could do, that was to break the mighty phalanx of the Kurus. So although a person may be in some aspects may not be on the same fully developed, in terms of being a completely God realized soul or something but just by carrying out very cleverly? What is the desire of the previous Acaryas, then the same power is handed down and miracles can be achieved in expanding Krishna consciousness. Of course we shouldn’t make the mistake what Abhimanyu made, what he did, he didn’t finish his lesson. That time, I think he was in the womb of his mother and his mother fell asleep or something and he could not hear the last thing which was how to get out of the phalanx. So we should ___________(37: 55) thats another point , we should be very clear about what Prabhupad wants, what the previous Acaryas want. When we are clear, when we are sure then we should go ahead without any doubt, should go ahead with full enthusiasm knowing that their mercy is there behind us. So already we can see that Krishna’s mercy is coming down, the evidence is there to that effect and that things are starting to gradually expand, nice devotees are coming and community is blossoming. So we should be careful to keep all relationships in Vaishnav_______(38:43) , Krishna conscious level, avoid the things that happens when big communities sometimes goes to a loss in kind of a family spirit. We can keep us unified just like Krishna had a family with millions of people and they are all one big family. Similarly we can remain as one family even if we our numbers grow if we keep that Krishna conscious spirit and if we avoid any kind of material consciousness that comes up to interfere with that natural Krishna conscious flow and the appreciation of good qualities in other and avoid __________(39:32) bad qualities . There will always be some bad qualities, no one is hundred percent perfect, even those who are perfect if you look hard enough, you can find something bad. Sisupal found things to complain about in Krishna, although there was nothing wrong with Krishna but Sisupal was looking hard enough that he thought that he saw something wrong. So certainly Krishna is absolute and pure the conditioned souls and even our devotees are practicing. We may have so many things that one could point out, but if we actually see how a person is dedicated , how they are serving , how they are engaged in preaching and other activities , if you rather to all his good qualities , which is recommended then naturally we start seeing we are in a very fortunate situation to be in a society in a community with so many wonderful devotees, who have got so many wonderful qualities ,alright there may still be a few qualities that we don’t want to talk about but there are so many qualities we can talk about and we enjoy talking about and those are qualities we should focus on and the other things Prabhupad has said they would disappear, they are superficial . Any material quality that may be there in a devotee will be gradually burnt away by the process of Krishna consciousness. So rather we like to focus on all the good qualities we see in various devotees. Just like the parents in their children they like to see the good qualities, they are looking will my child become a devotee? Is my child a devotee? So naturally we when they see those qualities, they feel very happy. Naturally children will be children in other moments. But those moments of showing some special quality , those are high points , points of pride or hope in a parent that may be this child ,will be a real putra or the putri will be able to deliver the parents if not more. So in this way we should also be very proud when we see different devotees rendering nice devotional service. That should be a source of inspiration for us. In this way we learn to appreciate each others’ better qualities then naturally our community becomes closer and closer and all the devotees will learn to reciprocate with each other in a much higher more Krishna conscious level and that actually encourages one to develop more of these good qualities and naturally to neglect any kind of bad qualities that are still there, they start to disappear more and more. So I’m very thankful to be here in your presence. Hare Krishna! Devotees: Haribol! Jayapataka Swami: Any questions? Yes Devotee: (inaudible) ( 42:49) is it correct understanding that if we follow the process that Prabhupad has laid out , chanting our sixteen rounds, following four regulative principles, staying in association with devotees , then when the time comes to leave our body , even if we didn’t purify everything and so are thinking of some material desires _______(43:10) then will he take us back anyway? Guru Maharaj: What Prabhupad said is that, if a person follows the process of Krishna conscious he may not have to take birth again in this material world. Now how free we are from things like offenses may decide where we go out in the spiritual world, either we get a place in Vaikunta or we get a place in Goloka Vrindavan ______ (44:07) .Or I mean if a person, I had one person who approached me in India, he had a very strange character, he said I have been chanting 32, 20 or 16 rounds for 26 years but he never gave up eating fish. In His neutral position we were discussing today, He simply reciprocates with the person so perfectly. There are some one who would do something like that because of the offenses while chanting the Holy name that they don’t actually make advancement, towards pure love for Krishna. They are getting some benefit from chanting, but at the same time their material desires are not going due to being absorbed in sense gratification like that so I advice them that you should chant the names of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and by His mercy you may be able to overcome this desire of eating fish and sure enough after chanting lord Chaitanya’s name for some period of time he got some spiritual intelligence. He stopped eating fish. Even though 26 years he was on his weird practice when he although chanting he never tried to avoid stopping that breaking of regulative principle. So if a person I mean if he is determined, you know although he would have chanted the 16 rounds and followed the regulative principles, but if they take things in an attitude that I’m determined not to give up my material attachments. Then that is an _________( 46;03) from our side it should be not just externals but it should be internal , we are trying to follow the process. We are trying from our part to give up our attachments. If we are having the proper attitude while trying to give up our attachments, we are trying to avoid, even if we are not fully successful, Prabhupad said that there is Krishna is so merciful, Lord Chaitanya is so merciful. Even one may not at the point of death, had been a hundred percent successful. We can still get delivered. In fact ____________(inaudible) ( 46:50) I was in Montreal and Prabhupad is giving a lecture. That time we had a Vyasasan. It was very high. It was like when we stand up we would be facing Prabhupad eye to eye or he will still be a little higher than that. It was a very high Vyasasan. He had to really climb up, it had steps going up and it was more or less kind of a pulpit. So he would be up there, he would sit and he would even take Prasad there. In a feast, they would bring a big plate of Prasadam and we would all be sitting down and he would take Prasadam from there and sometimes he would give Prasad out from there. One day he was giving his lecture from up there actually and at this point he was just preaching very hard, we have to be a hundred percent Krishna conscious. We have to try; we have to be a hundred percent Krishna conscious. We have to try for that. We have to become. If we are hundred percent Krishna conscious, then we can get closer to Krishna, then our life will be completely successful. He was hammering this point. Now the devotees were thinking, a hundred percent, you know, their heads ______ ( 48:09)were hanging down, they became very thoughtful. The hundred percent was like such an objective that it never seemed that is ever possible; even you know to get very close to a hundred percent. But Prabhupad was very emphatic on this point. The devotees were very thoughtful at that time. Then Prabhupad, he ended the class. There was just a heavy silence. No questions. That is it . He ended the class and said , “Become cent percent Krishna conscious.” It was just like a death ________( 49:00) it was like he saw silence that he could swim through it. Now Prabhupad was sitting there on his raised Vyasasan and said,”Even if you are ninety percent Krishna conscious, Krishna is so kind.” It was still _________(49:18) . Then he started to get down and when he was about half way down just as he was getting off the Vyasasan he turned to the devotees and said ,”Even eighty percent, he can be delivered.” He started walking out, then he turned and his chaddar fell off, I remember it was such a dramatic almost like you see in the movies ____________(49:54) his chaddar flew like that and said “Even seventy percent.” He took his chaddar and threw it on his shoulder and raised his head and walked away. Srila Prabhupad Ki! Devotees: Jai! Jayapataka Swami: But Prabhupad was trying to be hundred percent.