19860722_Srimad_Bhagavatam.2.6.18_Bangalore_India_literal version The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapataka Swami on July 22nd 1986 in Bangalore, India. The class begins with a reading from the Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 2, Chapter 6, verse 18. JPS: martyam annam yad atyagat Devotees : martyam annam yad atyagat JPS: mahimaisa tato brahman Devotees: mahimaisa tato brahman JPS: purusasya duratyayah Devotees: purusasya duratyayah JPS: Translation by His Divine Grace Swami Srila Prabhupada Devotees: Jay Srila Prabhupada The Supreme Personality of Godhead is the controller of immortality and fearlessness, and He is transcendental to death and the fruitive actions of the material world. O Narada, O brahmana, it is therefore difficult to measure the glories of the Supreme Person. Translation: JPS: The Supreme Personality Devotees: The Supreme Personality JPS: of Godhead Devotees: of Godhead JPS: is the controller Devotees: is the controller JPS: of immortality Devotees: of immortality JPS: and fearlessness Devotees: and fearlessness JPS: and He is transcendental Devotees: and He is transcendental JPS: to death Devotees: to death JPS: and the fruitive actions Devotees: and the fruitive actions JPS: of the material world. Devotees: of the material world. JPS: O Narada, Devotees: O Narada, JPS: O brahmana, Devotees: O brahmana, JPS: it is therefore difficult Devotees: it is therefore difficult JPS: to measure Devotees: to measure JPS: the glories of the Supreme Person. Devotees: the glories of the Supreme Person. JPS: Here Lord Brahma, who is the founder of our disciplic succession, who is also, you can say, the founder of the creation of this universe, he explained some of the glories of the supreme personality of Godhead. In the previous verses he was talking to Lord Siva stating that… stating that He or Lord Siva, what to speak of Indra and other demigods are not able to perfectly understand the limits of the glories of the supreme personality of godhead, what to speak of others? Here similarly, he explains it’s difficult to measure the glories of the supreme person. Why is it difficult to measure the glories of the supreme person he also explains. It’s not that as in some religious traditions they say you simply have blind faith. If you say why do you believe in this particular thing? They say you just have blind faith. You don’t ask any questions. It’s not like that. That he is saying well there is a God, we don’t know what he looks like, we don’t know what he does, we don’t know what he is, we don’t know anything about Him except He has a son and you have to surrender to him and that’s it….. It’s not like that. He is explaining. The Lord is illuminated, self-illuminated. The Lord is immortal, then He is the controller of fearlessness, that He is transcendental to death, that He is above the laws of karma, and so many other descriptions are given in the vedas of course, even explaining about the Lord’s abode, that the spiritual planets are three-fourth or tripad vibhuti, three-fourth or 75% of His total energy and the material world is ekpad vibhuti or 25%. There are many universes ah… in the material world as mustard seeds in a bucket. It’s quite a few universes, but each planet in the spiritual world is bigger than one universe in the material world, and there are countless universes, at least three times as many ah… planets, three times as many ua… how many…. Tetris koti devata… 33 million demigods in ah… in this ah… universe, and each demigod has his own planet. So then how many planets? Atleast there is 33 million… 3300 million, and so there is many, atleast three times as many times as many universes as there are in the ah… material world, and each planet in the spiritual world is also as big as one universe. So in this way it is practically inconceivable. But at times incharge of the entire spiritual universe there is one supreme lord, but of course He appearance in each planet in a different form- Narsingha, Vamana, varaha, matsya, kurma and so on. So this way we can understand that the glory of the Lord, as explained in the Upanishad, puranas is ah… unlimited. So how to understand this ah… this glory of the Lord? It’s possible to understand the glory of the Lord if we take up the process given by the Lord. He explained that if you want to know me then follow process of devotional service. He explained, Bhaktya mam abhijanati… being my devotee no one can understand me. When He revealed His mystery to Arjuna in the Gita He told bhakto sakha sakha ceti rahasyam hy etad uttamam, I am revealing this secret to you because you are my Sakha, you are my friend and you are my bhakta. If we want to know who is Krishna, we should become His friend, become His devotee, you see. Ninth chapter of Bhagavat gita Krishna says that those who are thinking of Him, surrendering to Him, who are taking shelter of Him, worshipping Him, they are the most ah… united with Him. ….8.07-8.09… so in this way it’s not difficult to unite with Krishna through the process of bhakti, that’s why Krishna explains that of all yogis he considers the bhakti yogi to be the most… of the top most. Yoginam api sarvesam mat gatenantar- atmana, sraddhavan bhajate yo mam, sa me yuktatamo matah On the other hand Prabhupada explains it that the great sanyasis, brahmacharis, yogis ah… of the jnana marga or yoga mar… astanga marga school, for them it is very difficult to understand Krishna Bahunam janmanam ante jnanavan mam prapdyante Vasudeve sarvam iti sa mahatma sudurlabha After many many births even a great jnana, a great pandit, sanyasi, brahmachari, they are not able to understand the real position of the Lord. It’s very rare to find one who knows the transcendental position of Krishna, the supreme personality of Godhead. In other words therefore it’s a very great opportunity for everyone to take up this devotional service to Krishna. By taking up the devotional service to Krishna, then you can understand this greatness of the supreme Lord. Jay Krishna Balaram Jay Jaya Nitai Gaur This was the special gift of Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Different avatars give different benedictions, but the special benediction of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu is that He gave the benediction of bhakti. Krishna, He gives benediction of moksha or swargavas very easy, it’s not any great matter for Him to give. Although Hiranyakashipu, he did a great tapasya, he asked brahma to give the benediction of immortality but brahma said I cannot give it. “How can I give you what I myself don’t possess?” If you go to somebody who is driving riksha, scooter riksha, he is making a thousand rupees a month and you press him, “you give a one lakh rupees donation.”, where he will get it? “So you must pay?” “I don’t have it!” “No, but I don’t care, but you have to give.” “I don’t have, how can I give?” “you must pay!” Or the income tax officer, if they come, you show your accounts, and he is saying that, “you show you are making one lakh of rupees of profit.” They say, “No, you made one crore profit, you have to pay tax in one crore.” “I don’t have!” “No but that’s my finding.” “Where I will give?” So now the government has said that you accept the income tax submission…. So that’s the thing. We may pray, sometimes people think all the demigods are the same. So they pray to durga, “give me immortality”, but how she can give or the pray to shiva, “give me this”, but even Lord Siva explains that Visnu is the giver of mukunda… mukti. You can pray to ah… different demigods but you cannot get everything from them. You want to get this certain things you have to go to Visnu. Of course you can get anything from Visnu, but this things you can only get from Him. If you want to get a parking pass to ah... to the Vidhan sabha, you can park your car there, you can get it from the chief minister but you don’t have to go to him to get a parking pass for that, you can also get that from the head of the P.W.D and so many other junior officer if you have some business there. So why go bother. So that’s why the Vedas have told us, “alright, you want to get a wife, you worship ah… to Uma, you want a husband, you worship Siva, you want siddhi you worship Ganesh, you want this you worship this one because they can give that, but then people became bewildered, they think that all the God’s are the same, they don’t understand what is the difference. When the world, when universe gets destroyed then all this ah… positions are vacated, and they return again back inside the body of the Lord, to come out again at ah… again in the new creation. It’s actually… this is why Narada Muni after receiving these instruction from Lord Brahma he personally went and told Vyasa Deva, that the one thing you missed doing is you just glorified Krishna, glorified the supreme person, you have told all about every conceivable path, you have given a totally objective viewpoint but it is so vast that people they are not able to see the whole objectivity of it because you failed to give the central point that if there is one supreme absolute truth and that’s the ultimate …ah summum bonum… that’s the param…14.20… so people become bewildered. Actually the vedas are so vast you pick up one veda and you read… each veda says… that that particular demigod is supreme, so that people get ah… bewildered. Infact some commentators, they started to accuse the vedas because they don’t know what is the philosophy, that they are just showing from a different viewpoint. Just like if somebody from the viewpoint of the Bangalore municipality, he can started praising the mayor, “you are the topmost citizen, you are the best of the bunch, you are the controller of the city council, you can give all the permits, you can give us everything, you are the supreme…supreme what? Supreme in Bangalore. If someone else is saying to the chief minister. You are the head of the ministers, you have all the portfolios, you are the greatest, you are the topmost, you are the original of all the minister in this government…. This government… but what about the previous government? Now he is even out of the party, so (laughter)… this is the point that this… according to the perspective… not that the vedas are wrong but they are giving certain perspective on certain things but even within that, for instance if you read the glories of Durga, it’s says that she is… that in the Chandi of the ah… Markendaya Upanishad, there it mentions that she is actually the vaisnavi, she is the narayani, she is the Shakti of vaisnav…visnu… she is the Shakti of Narayan, but that the Durga worshippers they skim over quick. I don’t know how they understand that, but they go over that very quickly. They should know that there is various shakti’s of Visnu… Parasaye Shakti vividha suyate So the swatswatera Upanishad explains that there are external shaktis and internal shaktis. So in this verse… previous verse we are understanding that the Lord has got internal Shakti and external Shakti. So external Shakti is of ah… lesser magnitude than the internal Shakti. Nonetheless the Shakti exists. Just like in the government the budget outlay may be different for Police department or for welfare or for commerce or for different department but that doesn’t mean that one ah… department doesn’t exist because it gets a lesser budget. Still it exists, it has some functions, you cannot also do without it. Even if the budget is less that doesn’t mean that that function is ah… dispensable. Simply the budget is ah… different, that’s all. So in a similar way external energy budget Shakti one-fourth, internal energy budget three forth, but both has got their values, so they have to be explained. So this has been explained that bahiranga Shakti, antaranga Shakti. The bahira Shakti or the material world is also an eternal Shakti. That material energy is eternal, that’s why even modern physicist have not understood that there is a conservation of energy, energy is always existing, you may burn it, you may melt it, you may change it’s structure but some total energy remains the same. Thus the vedas say that this energy is eternal. So there are four eternal aspects and there is one temporary aspect, you see. There is the ah…there is the living entity or the internal Shakti of which the living entity is a part, there is the ah… So this ah…. Lord’s internal energy, then there is time… external energy, time and then karma. So the four are eternal but because the time is over, the time is also eternal, but because the time is over the karmas or material temporary activities those activities are temporary, for instance you construct this wooden case here. This case is not eternal. After some time ah…termites, different things are going to eat it and it’s going to change. This was made by some material activity, you can make this book but now we are trying to preserve Prabhupada’s books… they say that because of the asset and the paper after some time the books starts to turn brown, decayed and so on. So now they say put things in a microfilm that lasts for a longer period of time, but whatever you do, material thing has a beginning, has an end. Nothing is permanent because time factor has it’s ah… toll on all material things but Krishna, the material and spiritual energy, even ah… time itself, these are internal factors but the spiritual energy is above time, the material energy is ah…controlled, it’s effected, the material activities are effected by the time element. So although the material energy is eternal, it’s shape, it’s function, is controlled by time, but the spiritual energy is above time. Therefore in the material… in the spiritual world there is no ah.. death, there is no old age, there is no… none of the problems that come from the passing of time, those problems only exists here in the material world, because between the material energy and the material activities the time element is separated. So these things are very difficult to understand when you are in the material world, whether you are a great sanyasi or pandit or even a demigod, when you are in the material world it’s hard to understand what is beyond the material world, specially if a person is simply speculating, just like upstairs if we hear some noise…Prabhupada gave this example, there may be some…. Some kind of tapping noise, and we are sitting here and we can all take a poll what is that noise. Someone is saying that ah…one of the ah… some life members daughter is practising ah…bharat natyam”, and someone can say, “no, someone is washing his clothes.” Someone can say, “no, someone is…the mistri is repairing.” Someone else can say, “no, that some gunda-sunda players… they came upstairs and they are playing dice… dice is hitting.” Like this you can go on speculating. No one can say what… who is saying the right thing. When you go upstairs you find that the ah… some crow is just ah… hitting something.(laugh) So unless somebody goes up and sees what’s happening and comes down….so that way Narada Muni, he is the messenger from Narayana, he goes to the spiritual world, he comes down, he gets instructions from Brahma but he got such a blessing that he can himself go to the spiritual world. And not only that Krishna Himself comes down to give the instruction. So if you want to know what is going on outside of the universe… What is the universe, how you know within the universe. You need to know only if you get to know the objective broad viewpoint. Who has that viewpoint but Krishna. You may be a great sanyasi in the material world but that doesn’t give you the vision what’s outside the material world, you see. That vision has to come only by the blessing of the Lord, and that blessing is given not simply by vairagya but is given to those who are devotees. That’s why Durvasa muni, although he was a great ah… he was a manas putra of brahma, he was more powerful than any demigod. Even demigods were afraid of his curses but he was ah… defeated by the simple grihastha householder devotee, maharaj Ambarish, who was ah... a complete ah… fervent practitioner of bhakti yoga. He had to fall at his feet and beg for forgiveness and say that “I didn’t understand the power of the bhaktas.” Generally the sanyasis, don’t understand the power of bhakti. That’s why when Dhruva Maharaj, when he was going back to the spiritual world, then in other higher planets maharloka, janarloka they are watching him go by and they said that they could not go by their mystic power, how he was going to such a higher level. This indicates that not only are the levels of the universe simply a material level, like now they are sending this voyagers and other types of ah… rocket ships that spends billions and billions of dollars to go out in the outer space so that 30,000 years from now they will be sending back some information’s from the next ah… galaxy, so that ah… all the scientist who are alive then, they can get the information. So this type of programs are going but we find that ah… in vedas indications of going higher is more.... it’s more than just ah… ah… level of space, but actually there is higher levels in consciousness, higher level in ah… various ah… dimensions whereby one is able to go from one planet to the next planet or out of the entire material universe, out of the sight of these demigods, so they are watching and they could went out of sight. He went to beyond the level where they were able to understand. Just like a small five year old child is able to understand reality to a certain degree. He knows this is my mother, this is my father, this is my uncle, this is my aunty, this is my brother, my sister, my dog, this is ah… the house I live in, and they may know the neighbourhood but they may not know the…Bangalore. Bangalore is beyond their total…. Total understanding, entire geography of Bangalore. Gradually as they grow up they may know Bangalore, they may know this India and so many states in India, and then they can understand that there is a world we live in and then the world has so many ah… countries in it, and thus each country has got different languages and customs and so on. So like this according to a person’s not only age, but the development of their vision and their knowledge they are able to get a different perspective. So when one is able to develop their consciousness, the level of understanding… not only what is the stars in the universe, according to the telescope and so on but to understand rather what is God, what is the supreme Lord, what is the supreme person, and that there is beyond this universe which is visible by our… to some extent by our material eyes, that there is a entire unlimited material creation with as many universes in it as there are seeds of mustard that can be contained in a big bucket, in a big drum, so then beyond this entire material creation there is a total other spiritual realm. So this… how is it possible to know even you are a great sanyasi. You can’t see beyond the universe, you may see brahmaloka, you may see Chandra, how you know, that information has to be brought down, so that’s why Krishna, He comes down, Yada yada hi dharmasya glanir bhavati bharata Abhuthyanam ah… adharmasya tadatmaham srijamyaham I come down out of my own, srijamyaham… I come by myself, it’s not that He is brought down. See, we don’t come down by ourselves, we come because of karmas, because of some offenses we made from the spiritual world we came down, we have to get rid of that ah… that ah… attitude which has caused us to fall down. So Krishna when He came, Rama when He came, different avatars when They came, They killed the demons with Their arrows, with Their swords, with Their…. Krishna killed Kamsa with His own hand. So in this way the demon was killed and delivered, and those demons also achieved moksha by the Lord’s blessings, but Lord Caitanya, He didn’t kill the body of anyone like that. Rather the part of us, that demoniac aspect of us, that ah… asuric bhava you see which was discribed by the followers of the Madhava, that there are some of these asuric bhavas, they cannot get rid of it, they cannot ah… achieve moksha or they cannot become pure, you see. I don’t know how far that ah… was said by Madhava himself, but the modern day followers, some of them have this idea but Caitanya Mahaprabhu, His power was that He would destroy that particular kalush, that covering, that avaran, that demoniac aspect of a soul and leave the purified soul, that is why Lord Caitanya is considered to be the most merciful incarnation of Visnu, of Krishna, whatever existed, because even Krishna did not do that, someone had to go and surrender to Krishna, then he would be delivered. What about the demons like Sishupal and others, they were never surrendered to Krishna, they are demons after all, they don’t care to surrender to Krishna. So therefore how they can get delivered? They may get some moksha by merging, again they can fall down, you see. So upto Caitanya Mahaprabhu to some extent, a person who was in this material world, it was hard for them if they had the asuric bhava, it was practically impossible for them to get delivered. It would be very ah… rare case of some special mercy….maybe some mahapurush like Narada Muni or someone, they have purified some souls like that. That is the mood of the great acharyas that they purify these fallen souls. But this first time the Lord Himself came down in the mood of a devotee, therefore he wanted to deliver everyone to the last soul. In fact it’s described that His objective was to see that every soul in the universe is delivered. At least all of the human beings he wanted to get on this planet. So that’s why they…. Lord Caitanya is glorified by this… Namo Mahavadanya Krishna Prema Pradaiyate That the great, most merciful avatar, the Lord has come as His own devotee giving Krishna prema pradayite, giving this Krishna prema which Krishna Himself did not give so freely as ah… as Caitanya Mahaprabhu. That Krishna actually would hide it, He would give it of course if you pressed Him for it, just like sometimes the Chief Minister may be having some very special permits and things like that. He doesn’t tell anybody about it, he is waiting for some good donation or something like that to the fund but ah… if someone knows it and presses him, that I want that thing then he can get. Like that Krishna has got some special gifts, to give some special blessings but he doesn’t give that you see normally, he gives other things, because people normally do not know about it. They ask give me moksha I will take it, because after moksha what is there you get liberation, then Krishna has no more obligation, but explanation is given that by Yudhisthir… Yudhishir was praised by Narada that how you are so great, that Krishna for you He is your father, He is your brother, He is Your mother, he is your… head of Your family, He is Your God, He is your everything, even He became your servant, He became your order carrier, who can imagine, how you can get God Himself to come and carry your message like your bearer. This is only possible by bhakti, therefore you should consider yourself the fortunate of all people. How is it that Krishna is carrying that shoes of Nanda Maharaj on His head for His father. You see, that is the wonderful quality of the Lord. That’s why also the avatar Krishna-Balaram, has been accepted by ah… great acharyas as the original avatar, because these avatars contains the aspect that even Narayana doesn’t contains, since the original contain all the aspects, otherwise how is it original, it is not complete unless it contains everything. The incarnation of Krishna contains aspects which no other avatar contains. If there is no avatar, there is many things that Krishna Himself doesn’t contain. Therefore they have come to the conclusion that Krishna is the complete form. He is the original form. Om Krishna vai sachidananda gunah Krishna adi purusah Krishna purusotammah In the rig veda it is said that He is the adi purusa. Any case, whatever visnu tattva, they are all the same absolute person, but according to different moods and different ah… functions they are manifesting… he is manifesting different aspects of Himself. So that form which manifests the maximum is Krishna and His first Prakash is Balaram. So Krishna and Balaram, they also have this ah… they are the most personal in Their dealings, just ah… acting a simple cowheard boy, a cowheard ah… cowheard boys. In fact we find that when Krishna was in dwarka, at that time Subal, that…he wanted to meet ah… Krishna and that Krishna was ah… not ah… his ah… queens said we don’t want any of this ah…they gave some difficulties for Subal to get in, because he was coming as a cowheard boy just as some farmers coming to see Krishna, the Lord of Dwaraka, who is this farmer coming here, some cowherder. Then when Krishna knew it was Subal… he said you have to bring him in, you know after all I am also a cowherder, but now just because of this ah… will of providence now I have to act as the King here of Dwaraka, but my actual… in a mood is I am the cowherd boy. Actually it is said that Krishna, He never leaves from Vrindavan. When Akrura was taking Krishna from Vrindavan and he went into the Jamuna, Actually that ah… Vrindavan Krishna, He stayed in Vrindavan and He expanded in the Dwaraka Krishna, another Krishna Himself, but another… an expansion of Krishna. Left at that point. Krishna Himself stayed within. That original Vrindavan form of Krishna left Vrindavan, and He was just observing how the devotees were experiencing love for Him in His absence, and so they could sometimes feel His presence but they sometimes couldn’t see Him and so on. So this things are possible for devotees to understand, but before we can get to that understanding we should know what is the power of Krishna, what is His potency. Therefore here in the second canto, here it describes about Purush sukta, it describes about universal form, about this unlimited potency because otherwise we will get some…we will just think, “oh Krishna and Balaram, who are they?” We won’t understand. So first we have to know, who is Visnu, how is Visnu expanding, then we come to understand that who is the original form of Visnu, that same Krishna is Visnu. That Visnu is unlimited, He is the original person, that He is beyond death, He is immortal, He is beyond karma. Being beyond karma, this is so important. Everything we do has a karma. How do we get rid of the karmas? Even if you do pap, or you do punya, it doesn’t counteract each other. When you serve the Lord, because He is beyond the karma’s, that means the karmas go to Him. So He… He absorbs that karma, and one is then free. So one has to know the science of action, that by….this is explained in Gita that one should know what is karma, what is vikarma, what is akarma. When you serving the Lord in Bhakti, it is akarma, there is no reaction for that. So when the devotee is serving the Lord then he is given the shelter, then he also becomes fearless. Bhajure mana sri nanda nandana abhaya carana ravindra re This abhaya caranarabindra, one who gets fearlessness by taking the shelter of the lotus feet of Sri Nanda Nandana Krishna. This name is also the name of Bhaktivedanta Swami. A.C means abhayacaranarabindra. That means his name given at birth… the guru kept the name because that is a very good name. Sometimes a name is good, so it is kept. Generally it is changed, but some slight change was given, from Abhaya Charan to Abhaya Caranarabindra, that’s very long …37.36… so that pure devotee is fearless, otherwise how Prabhupada at the age of 70 can go by his own on a ship to America to spread this message of Bhagavat Gita or Srimad Bhagavatam of sanatan dharma. Unless you have complete faith in Krishna, complete shelter of Krishna it is not possible to have that level of fearlessness, but the devotee they have. This fearlessness as they advance. That’s also a quality. Quality of animal life means always fearful. People think that the animals are happy. In France they asked the people, “What you would like to be in your next life?” The men said that, “I will like to be a dog” and the woman said that “I will like to be a cat.” This was the number one choice. Second choice of men was horse, second choice of woman was snake. (laughter) They don’t know. They think that animals are free… animals are free. What freedom do they have? You look at a bird, it’s always looking every moment. They are moving their head constantly because they are always afraid. Animals… the nature of animal life is fear. Every animal is afraid. Cat is thinking when the dog will catch me, dog is thinking when that guy will kick me. Somehow they are always afraid. (laughter) That’s why… in human life what is happening now in the modern world…we are having big bowing jets, we are having nice cities, but what is happening, we are all afraid, why?, because of lack of spiritual development and increase of animalistic tendency. Inspite of so much technology everyone is afraid… afraid of terrorist, afraid of crashes, afraid of so many things, and they are rightfully so. And they are all real dangers, because so long we think we are the body we know the body can be destroyed any moment, we should be afraid, that is the nature of animal life. You know you are the body and the body can be killed any moment, so any intelligent animal is afraid because the fear is justified fear for an animal because the body will be destroyed sooner or later, and preservation means how to make it later. We can never make it never. So why a person becomes fearless when they are devotees or when they get spiritual knowledge, because they know that they are not the body. So that type of fear, of course care is there, precaution may be there, but that fearlessness meaning that the freedom from the desperation or from the ah… that type of ignorant type of fear when one is feeling ah… hopelessness and so on, that is not there. A group of psychologist did a study in Los Angeles of the devotees and they said that ah… they were so much complained saying that they were brain-.washed or something like that, because people get that idea in the West because we chant Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. They think this makes you into a mindless idiot because you are listening to this mantra. You can listen to this rock and roll the whole day, that doesn’t make you into a mindless idiot but if you chant the name of God that makes your mind… This is their presumption. They hear at full blast for hearing… “I cant a get nose at this fashion…na na na…” All this things, that doesn’t make you into a mindless idiot but if you chant the name of God, that makes you mindless… this is their idea, this makes you brainwash. Prabhupada he retorted that they have no brain to wash. (laugh) We came to give them brain.(laugh) We came from India to give them intelligence, they have no spiritual intelligence. So this psychologists, so they were neutral people, they did a… they did a study of the devotees and they found that the devotees were not brainless idiots. That on an average they are more intelligent than the normal people and they are more… psychologically they are more self-sufficient. They found that more people in society, they are more afraid of what people… all the people are thinking… therefore they conform themselves and they are more, they are actually more of type of crippled personalities but that… we found that the devotees where each one ah… not so concerned about what others were thinking ah… on that level, that therefore they were more self ah…sufficient…more independent thinking, more of course. Voluntarily they had dedicated themselves to particular path, but that was something voluntary, that was something that was conscious, that was an intelligent decision. As a result their entire personality, they found to be somewhat more developed. He said that… but this all a natural thing, nothing very abnormal…this individuals in the material world also, but they said that one thing was very abnormal with the devotees. They said that they didn’t found any case of anyone who had been in the movement in the period of two years who had suffered depression. They said in the material world specially in America, that one of the biggest problem is depression. That everyone suffers depression in one case or another, by death of relative or by business failure or by frustration of this kind… all suffer depression and during the time of depression there is the danger of suicide, danger of violent acts, danger of drug addiction, danger of business further collapse, so many things that are very great. They found… they couldn’t find any devotee who suffered any symptom of depression. This is the actual thing, that because the abhaya caranaravindra re, this fearlessness, when you develop in your relationship with Krishna, you know that He is reciprocating, one devotee can feel that, in many ways. … 43.45-50… some person may say this is superstition or someone else may say it is imagination, but whatever over a period of time the devotee feels not only personal satisfaction, not only feels a personal peace of mind which is real but they also feel that Krishna is personally reciprocating in various ways and they become fearless. Their faith is reinforced by different things that happen. So in this way, they don’t have depression, whatever reason you can say, they don’t have depression. So that is actually just another evidence, not everything that here we are reading today. The more it gives fearlessness. So if somebody wants to end depression, wants to end mental disease, wants to end ah… frustration, even all this material common problems. They become a devotee of Krishna and chant Hare Krishna, be happy. And that he wants to achieve ah… liberation, alright same thing, you want to achieve the spiritual full knowledge, “what is the absolute truth? Where have I come from? What is the goal of life?” The only way you can achieve that is through Krishna consciousness. Nature of the spirit is to be happy, you want the happiness, you have to bring our spirit, bring the self, bring our self into the spiritual environment. So that is easily created by this process of chanting of Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare. The devotees may become independent of ah… of the cigarette smoking, of intoxication, of other type of illicit activities which take a person in control of their life and then ruin their life. Hare Krishna. Any questions? Yes. Q: The materialists sometimes say that I am fearless of death… Anwer by Gurumaharaj: Just pull out a pistol with a …45.57… and shoot him, see what happens… See what happens. They will take you to court and sue for scaring the hell out of them. Just like that Uttam Kumar… I was telling in Bang…Madras the story… this famous movie star, he was like in a…north India he was like the… in the eastern part he was like the Amit Bacchan, there are all this stunts and super hero type, but he got some disease and he was dying, and so he grabbed his doctors hand and was just saying, even though the reporters were there, saying, “Bachao, Bachao… save me, save me.” So then he died holding the doctors hand. So people were startled, the big hero was crying, “save me, save me.”, died like that in complete fear.

So then they asked the doctor that ah… “don’t you feel ashamed that you couldn’t save your patient when he was dying like that, crying save me, save me.” “Listen, many times he cried like that, many times I saved him, this the only one time I failed.” (laughter) Someone may be fearless, even though there is two key reasons to be fearless, one is through knowledge and other is through ignorance. You see. Someone who is very ignorant, they can also be very fearless. Just like some people are insane, they are… they don’t know, they walk off the roof, they are fearless…they may fall five storeys. Here is the natural instinct… we should… we are, we will fear… just like something is… tha’t within our hormones, within our body, say that there is some danger there that ah… physical response would be there. This fearlessness means some higher level. If you don’t know what the future holds and you are not afraid what is that… what is the value of your fearlessness? Somebody was taking drug, he is not afraid, what is the value of that. But if you know what the future holds, therefore you are not… because you have knowledge that is real fearlessness. Someone is ignorant, he doesn’t know if he is able to… just keep his brains stunned, that no, I don’t have no fear. Just like someone is saying, “don’t go there because there is a rioting.”, “no, I don’t have any fear.” Then he goes and then he …48.48-50… This type of fearlessness has no value. We are talking about fearlessness due to having real knowledge and real confidence and what’s happening, that fearlessness is due just that…. That way some people think, “there is no death, there is no life after death, I am fearlessness, let me die, nothing is there.” Someone may be fearless like that also but in actual practicality it is very hard to stay in that… but say even if someone has that, what do they gain? If they say there is nothing after death, so their fearlessness is because they say there is nothing, so whether I live or die doesn’t make any difference. I don’t exist. I accept Buddhist. There is nothing, everything is void whether I exist or not, then why worry about it? But say that they have some speculation like that, so then when you die then it’s finished, nothing to worry about. But this life the philosophy is promoting terrorism. They think that the value of life is no value. Whether you kill a man or you just throw a… a… 200 ah… pound bag of cement ah… into the river, what is the difference? This life is nothing, so killing is nothing. Everything is nothing, nothing is nothing. All is nothing. From nothing to nothing… you see this is all promoting terrorism in the world, this impersona…you find the impersonal religious ah… so called… so called followers of religions which are promoting more impersonal idea tend to be more violent as a nature, as a natural thing. They also believe in …50.32-36….. Although everybody is more or less violent in this dan age due to the kali yuga and due to the meat eating and so on but that kind of values about doing some horrible act of violence in an impersonal idea is more, because they…. For them personality doesn’t have any real value. That’s just historically… one can just read the newspaper who does the most horrible things? Those who don’t believe in God or who don’t believe or believe that God is there but He is impersonal, that type of fearlessness that ah… I don’t care what happens, I will do anything, that is not a productive fearlessness. We are talking about having fearlessness due to knowledge, fearlessness due to a higher spiritual realization. Someone says I am fearless, then he must be a devotee. Even he has fearlessness… that also… yes that has been given to you by Krishna because that’s here in the verse that Krishna is the giver of fearlessness, He is the controller. So if someone has any fearlessness he is blessed by Krishna. I had a girl told me that… I was in San Franscisco and the girl said that, “I don’t believe in God, I don’t believe in any of these things, I don’t need these things, I am self-sufficient, so and so….she had a small child. All of a sudden there was there was a earthquake and sometimes in San Franscisco there are earthquakes, and the houses are shaking and things moving, and suddenly she starts screaming out, “I don’t want to die, God save me, God save me!” Within 10 minutes I was astonished, she is running out of the house saying, God save me. A minute before she was saying I don’t believe in God, I don’t care for others you know, and all of a sudden the house started shaking, then suddenly she got totally afraid, god save me! god save me! running out of the house, because people think God is an interruption in their enjoyment, so they say I don’t know God but when the fear comes…. When the fear of death is there then they think this is a greater ah.. problem, then who is going to save me, then they say God. (laughter) Yes. Q: How do you account for the present development in the civilization, times technology and who is the cause behind it? JPS: Who is the cause….?? Will of providence…. These things are all predicted. Krishna told mayasura that don’t give all this ah… yantra vaigyan … in this kali yuga, don’t give it now because it disturbs them. Yantra vaigyan is always there mentioned in the vedas, airplanes, and so many things are there but if you have the higher psychic power why use the materia… machine. You have a new maruti car, if you don’t have one you ask those who have and you keep a track, is that car immortal? How much energy… any new thing you get it is very nice but after a while the tyres wear out, you change the tyre, fill the air, put the fluid in the brakes, put the oil in the brakes, then the spark plug wear out, and check up, and tuning and this… and this goes on. You have a machine means what, you have to serve that machine because nature of the material world is always breaking down. If So you want to keep something in tip-top condition, you have to put so much energy into it. So Ramchandra, if He wanted He couldn’t have a bowing ah… bowing demon…the Puspa viman is much better, you don’t have any… it’s running by spiritual potencies. The devatas, they don’t mess around the… but the asuras they use these jantras. The asuras always have the jantra voigyan but they have to work like anything to maintain it. They have higher level jantra vaigyan also that requires less maintenance than what we are doing now. What we are doing is the lowest level. Q: ….. is there a divine mind behind this creation? JPS: Behind the creation divine mind is ah… there, I don’t know how it fits into the context of your question. Q: When educated can’t we see Krishna in it? JPS: Of course, anything that is wonderful in the world, you can see the reflection of Krishna in it. We are not against technology. It’s not technology that is bad, it’s how they use it. Right…What’s wrong with light…electricity, nothing is wrong with it, it’s a neural thing. Technology… if you take an aeroplane and you fly, devotees have to go somewhere and do some preaching, what is the problem, or you see everything is satwik, rajas and tamas, if they use something to destroy others that is tamas, if you use it just for maintaining your… or increasing your material situation for your sense gratification then it is rajas, and if you use it for helping others and for bringing people to higher awareness this is satwic. So things that are used for a satwic purpose it is very beneficial, if it is rajasik it is neutral- it’s neither beneficial nor very harmful. If they use something for tamasic then it is harmful. So the problem is that many of the… for the purpose of rajas people are doing tamas. Just like medicine may be good but that some people are getting spurious medicines to make more progress. So for rajas purpose they are doing some tamasik things and that is creating problem. So the thing itself is not… it’s only that what the material nature is, it’s neither good nor bad, it’s simply an energy of God, if you use it in God’s service… if you use it in Krishna’s service it’s good it’s pure, it’s uplifting, it’s wonderful. If you use it for destruction, then it is ah… material, if you use if for some material purpose than it has some temporary effect. Temporary effect may be good or may be bad according to the particular mode it is under. Everything has it’s sanction of Krishna, how the intelligent person is desiring to do something… he wants either researching for long hours, Krishna gives them the intelligence how they can do that. If they want to build a bomb, it also gives him intelligence, if they want to build medicine then they make a medicine, He gives them intelligence. How they use it, that’s upto them, and then they have to take the karmas for that. Krishna is the supersoul antarjami. If a person is wanting to do something bad enough, they are trying for it hard enough and then if they have the necessary punya, that they can get what they want. Punya means what? That’s your… that’s your bank balance, you can get what you want. If you have a good punya and you want to do a bad thing, you can get the power from God to do it, but then you use up your punya. Then after that when it is used up you fall down. So previously in the world people were doing more and more. They were doing many pious activities. All the fore fathers, other they were doing, so some punya are there. So they are able to do something. But now they are doing so many sinful activities. Gradually the punya is going down and the pap is increasing. So this whole civilization can crumble, it can destroy itself. So the same jet that is flying us from here to there, that can also fly the nuclear bombs and drop those bombs. They have already calculated that there is enough nuclear warheads to destroy the civilization about hundred and so or more times over… hundred or thousand times, I forget that. It’s quite incredible that they have so much nuclear warheads that ah… they can over-killed. So it’s not that it means…we are not against technology because unless there is spiritual training side by side, then this all things will be misused. Simply going on increasing new ah…just like they created… that they have now, you can buy electric tooth brush, so they don’t have to just… do that stress and strain of moving your wrist. It just do that eh… it just moves, right? And everything is so automatic, you don’t have to get up to turn your T.V, now you have cordless. And the one they… and now in America… they have also, you have to spend thousands dollars in joining a health spot because if you don’t get any exercise, you have to spend thousand dollars… and go have machines and then you can run and do rowing and do all exercise, in air-conditioner. So th..this is all artificial…. Insanity. We created a society… which to make more and more comfort than we have so bad health because we don’t move, we have to then ah… spend money in more machines to do exercising. So the point is that… Prabhupada said that…what is the need for all this artificial life-style. Why not bring things back to more natural way of life, because what we are doing is that we are wasting valuable human energy. All this things, all this machines means waste of energy. I found in the village, when I am travelling around around India, I found one lady was making… in the morning she was making rice paddies, soaking in the water overnight. She cooked it in the sand ah… and put it on the… put it in a small ah… she had a hollowed out wooden log with a steal top in the bottom. The daughter was putting in this hot ah… cooked in the sand rice into that steal cup and the lady was taking… she was about 65 years old. She is taking a stick and she was hitting the… hitting the ah… rice and flattening it and making her ah… morning cereal, the daughter was taking out the rice and just ah… cleaning it up and that was the cereal for the family in the morning. Everyone was in tip-top shape. So now we buy the corn flake… this that… different thing we are buying now from the package and you have to pay 50 times the cost than what the actual grain cost’s, and this is considered advancement of civilization. For those…those people they had to go to the effort… you see, although we don’t have the time now, we have to fast life, fast life means to work so hard so that we can maintain this artificial way of life. So that’s why we are against it, that why unnecessarily complicate life. There may… you may need defence, you may need ah… you may need essential commodities you may need, for agriculture or for medicine, certain things you may want to have hi-tech, otherwise we are just doing hi-tech for this… this is just like a mad rush, where it is ending nobody knows. Nobody can see where the end of the civilization is but few…many people think that it is probably ending up in nuclear war. So unless… unless people have more of a spiritual outlook, then they are going to use all material these material items simply for the destruction. And if they have a spiritual outlook than naturally they are going to use this material things for the beneficial. So we are simply saying that whatever material things are there…side by side there should be a promotion of spiritual values, spiritual education, and let people to be able to be happy living a more natural way of life… in that way unnecessarily one won’t have to have unnecessary technology. Whatever technology is necessary that would never always be there, we cannot turn back the clock, we are in this yuga and we are here to stay until they bore everything up… and then all this machines are useless, then we have to adapt. That will be easier to adapt in India than in the West, but wherever you are the real…the real governor that can stop this ah… rampant ah… profileration…how you say?... proliferation of ah… of materialistic violence and degradation. To counteract it… it needs spiritual values, and the simple method, the capsule method… if you are going to do everything the modern way… then do religion in a capsule way. Whole religion… the vedas say… all the vedas, all the tantras, all agamanas, all sacrifices, everything is been combined into eight syllables- Hare Krishna Hare Krishna…. so that’s what… you just chant this Hare Krishna mahamantra and everything is there combined within there. So this is the… everything is suited for the modern world. You want everything quick, fast… than alright you take it, this is the capsule form, hare Krishna hare Krishna Krishna Krishna hare hare hare rama hare rama rama rama hare hare. You see how fast it works. Q: you see, you said about realise self JPS: no karma… that you judge. Q: If we look closely into our mind, our mind always tends towards some absolute, whether it is the spiritual or in the material nature, so can we justify this tending towards this absolute, both in the material as well as the spiritual, and this is only a phase of development. This material development is only a face, and that there is always a divine mind balancing the whole movement. From the latter stage they just come back to reconcile the opposing forces. JPS: who is they ? Q: Probably God will manifest it in that way JPS: see… we can go on in this way interpolating and imagining and speculating. Q: we are not imagining, as we see it in reality that there some tending towards an absolute and everything…whether in destruction or in… JPS: but the analysis of that would be… not only be aided but actually be properly understood if you take advantage of the words that God has given us, the words that Krishna has given us in the Bhagavat gita, in the Srimad Bhagavatam. You may see that there is tendency to an absolute, so you want to know why is that, then you start to make different ah… assumptions, this is why, that is why. The thing is that if you go to the vedas, they say yes, because there is an absolute, naturally there is a tendency for an absolute because absolute truth is there, so naturally there is a tendency to go looking for the absolute. Because we are eternal even if you try to just ah… kill a bug the bug runs away, because the nature of it is to live, not to die. Death is unnatural, therefore nobody wants to die, because by nature the atma is eternal, so this change of body is an unnatural thing, but we have to go through it because we are in a material conditional life, so we want to understand why this tendencies are there, why a person wants to live, why they go for the absolute, because they want to live… because we are eternal by nature, they go for the absolute because everything is coming from the absolute truth. So to understand this things, your ideas are alright, but then if you want to really see whether they are valid or not… otherwise if it is just an opinion, you have an opinion, the other person has another opinion, this way over the cups of coffee people can sit and give their opinions, but there will be no conclusion. So that’s why according to the vedic tradition we try to go through and analyse from the vedic viewpoint because here we are getting information, what is existing beyond our perception, something which is beyond our ability to perceive, what is the use of discussing it. How can you…how can you… what is the value of trying to by simply speculating, to try to understand what it is. Something which is beyond, what is beyond this universe. Even what is within this universe, they can’t figure out… atleast some idea, they can study the vibrations, the type of light coming, and through various ah…means they can try to assume what is the ah… components of that light, what are the… whether it is ah… containing the elements that they know, that’s how … at least there is some hints that they can get some idea from some ah… from some perception, but if you say what is beyond this universe, beyond the perception, what is the value of discussing that? So to discuss that, or to understand that is there beyond our perception, beyond our comprehension, therefore the vedas have been given, but to bring us into focus they also explain what is within our perception, that within the body there is the self and the self is situated in the heart and the consciousness is spread from the self throughout the entire body through the blood stream and therefore if you check the consciousness can be perceived… and the consciousness is the symptom of the self. So if we cut off the circulation of the hand… for a period of time cut off the blood, then we know the hand loses it’s feeling. If we sit in a particular way where the blood doesn’t get to the feet, then our feet falls asleep we call it… we cannot feel anything, they are numb. That means the body by nature is numb, it’s not conscious, but because the soul is the heart and the consciousness is spread through the blood stream, therefore the body appears to be conscious, it apperas to perceive and ah… the senses are activated by the presence of consciousness. When the soul leaves the body, the body itself has no more consciousness, it is a dull, dead piece of flesh and bone, there is no value whatsoever, except maybe you can sell it as a… for organs or something but as far as spare parts or anything, but as far as a valuable thing… the value is gone. So we think that the value is the body, the true value is the soul. The real value is the spirit soul and that is what we are trying to explain… people want to know what is the spirit soul… you cannot know it simply by this type of analysis, you have to ultimately come to the vedas because the vedas are the authorized scientific books on the science of the self, science of what is beyond our perception. So if you want to know why is it that things are happening or how is that God is working, why don’t you hear from Him Himself? He has spoken bhagavat gita, He has explained, “na karmayate” I am not the karma…lipyate… I am not engaged or bound by karmas. Just today we were hearing from Narada Muni, it’s said he is the controller of immortality and fearlessness, he is transcendental to death and fruitive actions, he is above fruitive activities, that means what is going on in the material world he is above it. That if he wants to interfere He can… He has the ability, but He doesn’t normally get involved except when He wants to, you see. He doesn’t ah… not that everything that goes on is personally done by Him or …1.11.00-05… He gives His sanction, He lets it…. Let it be. You want to do this horrible thing, alright do it… then He will adjust in such a way, that the people who deserve that karma they get the result. Just like somebody wants to highjack a plane , there is death set on it, so then He just organizes it, through His different agents so that all the people on the plane, the people who deserve to hijacked. Q: Vedas say that there are four yugas, satya yuga, dwapar yuga… isn’t it a cycle, it’s not pre-planned? JPS: Yes Q: So it is a divine play? JPS: Cycles are pre-planned. Q Kali yuga and all this… developments are going to take place, I think that the vedas are set about that. JPS: It’s not that Krishna is desiring that you do that, he knows what is going to happen. He knows the nature of it, just like a father knows the nature of the children, when he sees the child is growing up and having bad friends and he… he knows that if my child doesn’t get out of this association he is going to get drunk, he is going to have ah… drug problems, he is going to have disease or he is going to have some social ah… ah… mark on him. Does that mean that the father desires it, that the father is instigating it… because he can see in the future that this is what is going to happen. Krishna is not instigating that you all become bad in this kali yuga, otherwise why He is coming down as Caitanya Mahaprabhu, why came as Krishna, why came down as Caitanya Mahaprabhu, and He explained to the people, you follow the vedas, this is the disease of this age. I am telling you this because of this is a disease. Why the government tells you, “now it is malaria epidemic, you use mosquito nets, you take …1:12:52-56… pills, you do this, you do that, why? Because it’s quite.. malaria epidemic may be there, you are telling the people so that they can all go out and get malaria. Sastras are saying that this kali yuga people should be more enthusiastic for engaging in sinful activities. The sastras are telling, this is the critical period, this is the time when it is very easy to be contaminated. You have to take precaution, that’s why is the government… God is the government, He is telling the people, this is kali yuga, this is the nature, then He says, “what is the cure?” Harer nama Harer namaeva kevalam Kalua nasteva nasteve nasteve gatair anyatha That in this age of kali you chant the name of God, chant the name of God, chant the name of God, there is no other way, no other way, no other way to be purified in this age of kali. He gives the medicine for this disease. He has His own divine play in the spiritual world. There you can say it is all His play, there He is enjoying with His cowheard friends and cowheard girl-friends and His mothers and fathers and His all ah… His devotees, that’s His play, there He is personally involved in, and in this material world He is aloof. It’s not that Krishna is forcing people to be blinded by ah… by bad doctors or that Krishna is forcing people that they should the…do all this horrible things, that is due to their own spiritual bankruptcy and due to their own material karmas that this things are happening. Krishna is telling, “you don’t do this things.” Why in the Vedas it is said you don’t do violence, “ahinsa paro dharma”, different ah…ah… different maxims are given, different injunctions are given. Government says, “you don’t do this, you don’t drive on the wrong side of the road, you don’t drink and drive”, if someone does it, does that mean the government is ah… promoting it? How can we say that? Government is saying, “don’t do those things, You are doing it anyway, Krishna is saying if you do this it’s is a pap, I am going to punish you, they do it anyway and then they have the audacity to say that Krishna is responsible. That He is doing it, He is ..1.15.00 play… this is totally offensive and ridiculous, and people should be ashamed of it. There are number of atheists in this world that say that God is the one who is causing our suffering… you cause your own suffering due to your sinful activities and if you want to stop suffering then stop promoting this bogus idea and surrender to God His idea and follow His law. That is karma. So called sophisticated, educated mental speculators are ruining India and ruining the world. Hare Krishna. Do not mind. I hate to see the world being destroyed by this type of mental speculation and I am sorry to see you… Q: I am not saying I don’t believe in God, I am fully surrendered unto Krishna, I just wanted to gain your views on this, why the outside world is bewildered… I think you have misunderstood me and I am really sorry if I asked that question for you, I am fully surrendered to Krishna and you can ask the devotee, I am really sorry that you had to shout at me like this. JPS: I am not shouting at you, I am shouting at the philosophy… (laughter) Q: It’s not my philosophy, it is to get a view, why the outside world, what is going on in the outside world, should we not have an understanding? Why the people are… so that JPS: If it’s not your philosophy, then you are so much more the better and because I don’t want it to be your philosophy because I care for you, because I care for this world, therefore I am saying it in a… in a…in a… assionate way… (srila Jayapataka ki Jay) JPS: So that you will take it more seriously, because this type of philosophy… people take it very lightly. They have their Gita gyan yajna’s and this yajnas and that yajna, they sit around and they mental speculate, and then we have big planning commission and all this ideas are promoted. Q: And finally if did not believed in God, I would not be here. You can ask the devotees, I come here regularly every Sunday. JPS: People may believe in God but then they say God is formless, so what is that believe? So like this we have to refine our belief in God. I don’t say that you don’t believe in God, but then if you believe in God than you should know how to refine your… how to improve and how to expand in that belief of God so that it becomes complete and it becomes totally satisfying to you. Q: I don’t want to propound this philosophy, I just wanted to have your views that’s all, I am sorry JPS: No, don’t be sorry, that’s all right. Please don’t mind… that I didn’t… I am just saying in that sense, that this views, they are… they are actually, if you see their effect on the society, you read it, you view that…may be you are saying that it’s a devil’s advocate, then if you take it as devil’s advocate then don’t take it personally, right? In a devil’s advocate I like saying a view that I heard saying in a bazaar and if I get the… the answer to that I should take it personally, because it is not my view. So if it is not your view then don’t take it personally. If they shoe fits you wear it, if it doesn’t fit you then don’t take it personally. But because you are hammering on the same viewpoint so then what…so you want to bring it up then we will discuss it… it in full force… in full force. What is the real value, let people see. Every day we are reading Indian express, you read in the Hindu, read in all the newpapers, in all the India Toda, in all the so called sophisticated journalists, they all write this type of views and you see what is the result, what is the use of India that is becoming drug addicts in the universities following America, why? Because of this type of views. I don’t say this are your views, but because you bring that up… so if you bring them up than to a certain point naturally we started to feel, look at how… how the great heritage of India where people could become spiritually conscious, they could know what is the purpose of life! They should be rather beating the entire world, instead what are they doing, they are becoming totally destroyed by this all this type of ah… ideas. So I don’t say that this is your idea, I am very pleased to see that you don’t have these ideas. But therefore still the fact remains that these ideas which are actually leading people very subtly away. They don’t come out and say that I don’t believe in God. Better they came out and said that I don’t believe in God. They say, “no I don’t believe in God, but He is the one who is doing all this things”, then what is the sense, this is worse. I am not responsible for myself….. He is doing everything, in that way I believe in God. What is that? If I say my father…. I believe in my father, but my father is forcing me to do prostitution, black-market, everything, then your father should be put in jail. (laughter). That’s what the court will say. So when we say that God.. I believe in God but He is the one who is responsible, it’s His lila, it’s khela, He is doing everything. He has predicted, He is showing that your world degenerates, He is the one who finally comes and kills every one off and re-establishes satya-yuga. Then you gradually again and again degenerates because the nature of the material world is to constantly degenerate and degenerate and degenerate, until finally He become so intolerable in the end of kali-yuga that Himself He comes down and just clears off the whole show and re-establishes satya-yuga. That means His standard is satya-yuga but due to the passing of time it starts to go down, but what is the advantage of Kali-yuga? The advantage is that, because it is so horrible and so materialistic and so rotten to try to do anything punya, anything you want to do… , material good religious work, it’s practically doomed to various obstacles. Therefore at this time it is a very good time to go and to complete vairagya, to go and to complete kind of simply hopelessness as far as material future is concerned because there is no future in the material world, you can see it, it’s a… in the satya yuga you don’t feel that way, it’s very peaceful, nice, everyone is friendly, there is all religious ….. So people they are not so oppressed. In this age you can see that there is so much difficulty, that is a good impetus to simply fix your mind on God and go back to the spiritual world. That’s why it’s described in the bhagavatam that specially the good quality in this age is kalua dosho nidhi rajan, it’s go so many defects… asti ek mahan guna, it’s got one good quality.. kirtanad eva krishnasya, what is that Kirtan you chant, chant the name of Krishna, that is the good quality, why? Mukta sanga, you get liberation from the material world, param vrajet, and you go back to the spiritual world. You achieve the supreme, but this is the advantage of kali yuga that in this age it is easy to achieve liberation, you can achieve in 60 years or 100 years. In sat yuga you have to sit and meditate for tens and thousands of years, treatq yuga you have to do huge sacrifices. So in this age there is one side going, Krishna, He balances things out. Material people have made a mess with it, so alright He is giving a facility, alright this is what happens, “If I leave the show in your hands you ruin the whole thing and you make a mess of it, and when it gets too bad I am going to come in and straighten everything out but in the meantime I am leaving you happy with your play,…. This is our playground, we are the one who makes a mess of this world, we are the one who desire this things, the politicians, the leaders, the individuals, they are the ones who want to have the chicken in every pot, they are the one who want to have illicit sex, they are the one…. Krishna never promoted that free love, He said that you will be married. You are not married and have irreligious sex life you are doing sin. Before you put the blame… he is not desiring that people should do all the things they are doing in the world today, he is telling the opposite but we don’t follow His laws. Therefore, things go degraded but… what if those who do follow, inspite of all the hellish situation, those who try to follow his laws, who chant His names, what happens they easily go to godhead. Just like if you have so many sons who are bad, and one son he tries to follow the father, he gives him the whole inheritance. It’s like that. Right now everyone is just so bane??1.22.48, anyone who just obeys, just at this time they get a special benefit… they get a special bonus. So that’s what we are trying to promote, and also inspite of that the whole situation in kali yuga, we are able to spread the vibrations of Krishna’s name far enough, it counteracts the effect of the kali yuga. Therefore we are trying to spread this chanting of Hare Krishna far and wide, so that this effect of kali yuga can be pushed back. Then you can see an actual peaceful world to live in. Hare Krishna.

Transcribed by: Sadananada Krishnaprem Das. Dibrugarh Assam, 8th May 2016.