19860929 SRIMAD BHAGAVATAM 5.8.13, TORONTO:

This is Maharaj Bharata without thinking, he probably thought that he had been in the forest, I am very renounced, I am free from all danger. He didn’t think that his attachment to the deer was anything dangerous. Like this sometimes there may be someone who lives in an ashram and they may also think that because I am living in the ashram therefore I am free from all the dangers. But actually we can also become attached, whether in ashram or in the house too to material things. Even in ashram - there is a story that Atmatattva prabhu was telling us yesterday how Ramanujacharya, he was praising one of his grihastha devotees that they are very much Krishna conscious. He can tell you the longer story I can just tell you the essence of it. That there was this deity in South India and there was a very attached person. He was actually the martial arts guru of the king. But he was only into physical education, muscle building, martial arts – he was very materially attached. But he had been converted or he had been delivered by our great acharya, Ramanujacharya. Somebody couldn’t imagine how the grihastha was more renounced or more Krishna conscious than so many sadhus and sanyasis who were living with Ramanujacharya. So Ramanujacharya he sent one or two brahmacharis to go up into the sanyasis quarters, there were so many sanyasis with him. He said, you go there and you tear all of their kaupins. The sanyasis, they have only three pieces of cloth. They have this outward cloth which is called bahirvaas or outward cloth. Then the kaupin is what they are supposed to wear, just two pieces of cloth that are tied by like a jockey strap around, kaupin is what is called brahmana underwear. But that is the main dress for a sanyasi, when he takes sanyas that is installed as Anantasesha’s varuni, as it is a special deity installed, like installed kaupin. Whatever any way it is supposed to be one of their prime dresses and then the external dress is like if they go to the Ganges bathing or something, in India if you go to Prayag, Allahabad, when there is a Kumbha mela you will see so many sanyasis going and taking bath only wearing their kaupin, they won’t wear the outside cloth. Then the other cloth they wear is called uttariya. This cloth there is a design so if they have to go begging, they just hold it like this, so one can give donation. So that is supposed to be the renounced order, they just have this much cloth, they don’t have so much else. Because of international we have also added shirt but there are many sanyasis, they don’t even wear shirt. In South India to this day you don’t wear shirt generally when the sanyasi goes to preach. So the brahmacharis sent by Ramanujacharya they went and ripped up all of the sanyasis’ kaupins in the night time. So when they woke up they saw all of their kaupins had been ripped up. So in the morning he gave his morning class but no sanyasis came to the class. The grihastha couple was there during the class. So then he asked the sanyasis why you didn’t come to the class? They said, we had a huge argument over who tore off our kaupins? Who took the kaupins? Who tore the underwear? This was going on and so we missed the class! He said that all you have in the world is one outside cloth and one kaupin, one uttariya and for that if you don’t have your kaupin why are you wasting so much energy over that? You have given up everything and you are attached to your kaupin. You are arguing and fighting over that. So you are still materially attached! Even if it is over one little piece of cloth. The very next day he told the two brahmacharis, you go and sneak into the house of this grihastha and you steal all of the wife’s gold ornaments and you bring them here. So the brahmacharis went to the house. They went into the roof. The wife was there sleeping and she saw these two people were breaking into the house. And she saw that they are the brahmacharis of my guru maharaj. Why are they coming like thieves, maybe guru maharaj has ordered them to steal something. So if he has ordered to steal then I should let them steal. So they came and she was still wearing all the gold ornaments. They didn’t know how to do this. Somehow they took of the gold ornaments without waking her up when she was sleeping from half of her body as the other side she was lying on. She saw the guru sent them to steal. They only took half so I will just continue playing I am asleep and roll over the other side so they can take the other half. She rolled over the other side and they got all scared and thought she was waking up and they ran off. So they couldn’t take it. She was lamenting that the guru must have sent them, of course unlikely nowadays that a guru will send anyone to steal, if you see any brahmachari breaking in then you can check all the temple things but that was the idea, that the guru sent them to take the ornaments, I rolled over and they could only take half. So now I have committed a great offence. For some reason he wanted them to take all the ornaments. So the wife told the husband and they felt so bad they wanted to commit suicide. So they went to Ramanujacharya and said that someone came and only took half the gold ornaments and left the other half. So we want to commit suicide. They came to steal and if I give it, it is not fulfilling, it is not the same thing. So they were feeling very bad. Then Ramanujacharya had someone verify what was happening and he heard that they were feeling very bad and they even wanted to commit suicide because they think that they didn’t fulfill the order of their guru. Somehow the guru’s desire was not fulfilled. So he brought them and he showed everyone and said, look at this, the sanyasis are fighting because their underwear got misplaced and these people are missing hundreds and thousands of rupees worth of gold ornaments and they are lamenting that only half was taken, if it was the desire of the guru! So who is attached and who is detached? So here Prabhupad said that if we remember everything is for Krishna then there is no chance of being victimized by material activities. But if somebody thinks I am very renounced but they get attached even to their underwear, they get attached to their deer, someone gives up the whole world and then if someone takes their shaak they get very angry and are ready to beat someone. This is the illusion of maya. If we have everything we care and somebody takes our cloth, this or that happens, we should be actually detached. Otherwise there is no use in imitating the so called renounced order. Better to be as a grihastha then offer everything to Krishna, they offer the food to Krishna, they use whatever they have to make it Krishna conscious when in the house and use as much as they can in Krishna’s service. If they see everything for Krishna then there is no illusion. This is the basic purport. Of course our Vedic social structure is that we always respect those who are more in renunciation. But we have to always refine our renunciation. Not just be satisfied with some superficial, even a person may be a sanyasi but he may be demanding for himself or he may think that I deserve to get great respect, I deserve to become honored by people because of my renunciation because if they don’t respect me then they feel offended. But actually sanyasis should be equal – if he is offered respect or not offered respect. If a brahmachari is respected or not respected for being brahmachari it won’t affect his determination in devotional service. It is one for him whether it is fame or infamy, in honor or in dishonor. His duty is the same. So many times persons engaging in devotional service they become upset over insignificant things. What this one said, this one didn’t give me prasadam first or this one didn’t do this or that, I was neglected at this time or whatever, different insignificant things happen and these are allowed to take predominance in our mind. Actually we just take everything as the mercy of Krishna within whatever situation we are we try to do the most Krishna conscious. So in the sense Prabhupad is saying that he left everything but became attached to any insignificant pet. What was the use of renouncing his family? That was for our instruction. Of course Bharata maharaj, he got a bigger instruction and in his next birth he had to take birth as a deer due to his over attachment, due to his extensive attachment. So life is very complicated and a person he can cultivate Krishna consciousness in any situation whether grihe thaako, boney thaako, sadaa Hari boley dhaako. Whether he is in the grihastha ashram or whether in the more renounced orders, the vaanaprastha, the sanyasi or the brahmachari, ashram, but the point is that one should actually cultivate doing everything for Krishna. That is the actual test. Someone may be the most renounced but in their mind if they are still having attachment to being respected or to getting followers or to other things for material purpose just like laabh, puja prathisthani, they want to be important, or if they want some kind of profit from what they are doing, they are also contaminated. But if somebody feels detached even in their family life situation, they feel detached that there are so many difficulties in the sansar life but I am trying to everything so ultimately Krishna will be pleased, so the children can be God conscious, so that I can ultimately go back to Krishna, so that person is Krishna conscious. Even though externally it appears that the person is very attached, he is doing everything for Krishna. So this doing things for Krishna, this consciousness however has to be cultivated. Normally someone in the grihastha ashram doesn’t do everything for Krishna; they do everything simply out of material attachment. They think aham mamami, I and mine. I am this body and this body is connected with these things and therefore I have to work hard and that is the absolute truth and there is nothing more than that. This is the paro dharma. But actually the proper consciousness is to understand that everything is only coming from Krishna. Externally these things are connected with my body so therefore I have got some external responsibilities but ultimately my responsibility is to Krishna that is the responsibility of the soul. So I use all these material environments to please Krishna. In this way I can go back to Krishna, I can be fully Krishna conscious even within this external complicated situation if I learn to do everything for the pleasure of Krishna then I will be delivered. Relatively speaking the brahmachari life is much more free, there are not so much headaches. They don’t have to deal with income tax and with rent payments and with wife and children, only your personal problem is there whatever your clothing, your body and generally there is not so much disease if one is rising early in the morning and taking bath and attending the mangala arti, chanting, there are not so many difficulties. Life becomes more complicated in grihastha ashram. So then if one is a brahmachari they should take advantage of having a relatively free life to give more energy to Krishna consciousness. If they have relatively free life but they listen to rock and roll music that is not Krishna conscious, it is something else. Or if they get distracted by other kinds of distractions and they allow various weeds to continue to grow in their heart then what is the advantage? They are not gaining the full advantage. They are like that proverbial wedding party which was trying to cross the river on a boat but the anchor was never pulled out. They rowed the whole night and in the morning they saw that the boat was on the same side. So we have to pull out the anchors and someone who is training as a brahmachari in the future may also become a grihastha that is the varnashrama dharma. Or they may remain in the renounced order that is up to the decision of the guru and their own ability. But a person has to cultivate whether in the grihe in the ashram or in the boney forest, everyone has to cultivate this consciousness not to do anything, nothing, if it is not for Krishna. Even the most subtle thing if it is not actually for the pleasure of guru and Krishna, it is for our own personal pleasure, it is maya. Therefore we have to eradicate that. Maya in any form – those in the renounced order once they get rid of the gross attachments, then the subtle things start to attack. And we have to refine our devotional service till we get to the purest state. So we are practicing the same, it just gets more difficult to differentiate the more subtle that maya becomes. Sometimes you cannot tell what is maya and what is not because renunciation is very similar to devotional service. But even to renounce something which is favorable to devotion is also material. Say that somebody, sometimes there are people in India, so called gurus, someone wants to give money, they say no I won’t touch money, give it to my secretary, I won’t touch it. But Prabhupad, he said, I will take money, you can give me, I will take with two hands. Because I will use it for Krishna, I won’t use it for myself. For myself I don’t need any money but for serving Krishna, we want to print books, we want to build temples, we want to do big festivals, we have so many uses for money, we can use it! But for myself I don’t have any need, I have enough cloth, I don’t need. But for Krishna we have so many uses. Someone is showing that I won’t touch. So in this way they are trying to put forward some kind of impression that they are very renounced. But all these forms of subtle attachments to get name and fame is a great renunciant without practically educating people that money is something which is only bad when we only use it for material purposes. Therefore you can use money for promoting Krishna consciousness which is not bad. If you use it for material things, if you use it for sinful things then it is very bad. So all these things help to educate us that devotional service is a great science and here we see that how Bharata maharaj, he gave his love to the deer. We all have a natural propensity to love. We want to give our affection, we want to give our love, then who do we give that to? So naturally we give it to our family members, naturally we give to the people we are associating with. But sometimes there is a test. Just like Parashuram, he was tested by Krishna, by the Supreme Lord; he was tested by his Father. He had to do the supreme test. Where was his attachment? So of course, he passed the test. So similarly we are also tested at different times and it is up to us to take these tests in stride. Sometimes someone says something to us. A new person comes, they have to learn so many things, it is a new environment, and someone chastises them why are you eating with your left hand? Why are you doing this and they get little ego, why are they always on my case? These are all false ego that we have to give up. Even if someone may be very gentle, like you very much. Someone may be a bit inexperienced and say it in a very harsh way. We just take it alright, this is the mercy of Krishna, it is just to teach me some humility. Also sometimes someone takes initiation or they become a devotee even though they are living outside. But before generally when someone is like a life member or they are like a devotee from outside, they get a very formal respect. But it is more like a social etiquette. When they are devotee they are expected that we should do some little service when you come to the temple because this is as much your temple, your family as someone living inside the temple. So then when they are not given that same amount of respect that say a life member donor is given, they are treated with more familiarity like a devotee then sometime they feel that this is not proper. Srila Prabhupad said you have to be one or the other, either you are life member or you are a devotee. Not that you are both. If you are a life member then that is one thing, you get formal respect but if you are a devotee then we don’t consider like that, all devotees have the same right to go back to Godhead if they remain fixed in their Krishna consciousness. Of course devotees sometimes get bewildered – one time Prabhupad was describing all these things about the danger of attachment and things like that. So then he asked one parent, how do you feel about your daughter? And they said well, I am trying to be detached. Prabhupad said no, this is the way. You love your daughter, you love your child; don’t artificially try to be detached. It is natural to love your child. You love your child but then you love Krishna more and say let me try to make this child a person, that the person is materially qualified as well as becomes also a lover of Krishna. In the childhood it is easy to cultivate this God consciousness in the minds of children. They are more simple and open so the natural spiritual quality can be brought out by giving them Krishna prasadam, by chanting. So you love your child, it is alright. Now because you love your child you give your child the best. Try to free the child from the repetition of birth and death to give your child the God consciousness in addition to the material things that you have to provide. That is the proper dovetailing. Not that you say you want to be detached. Then the child will be unattended and uncared for, that is not pleasing to Krishna. So devotional service is something very practical, very utilitarian. Someone loves their wife or their husband, so they try to help the spouse to be God conscious. At the same time maintaining their own consciousness. This is the Krishna conscious way. It is called mercy. You try to help others, that is the mercy, compassion. But Caitanya Mahaprabhu, He was a special with His yukta vairagya and His different devotees; some of them were very renounced like Suklambar Brahmachari was only wearing just one cloth, begging every day from house to house. Others were very wealthy like Pundarika Vidyanidhi, he was a very wealthy zamindar who had so much landed property but he was always engaged in his home in Krishna’s service. And even we found that Bhakti Vinod Thakur, he was a magistrate, he had to preside – when you are a magistrate in the government you have to go to so many social functions. So he would do all his social duties also but his primary drive was toward spreading the Krishna consciousness movement. And he used his position in such a way that this God consciousness was promoted in society. So although he was a government officer, although he was a grihastha, he is considered as an acharya in the disciplic succession and he is one of the greatest acharyas. Grihe thaako, boney thaako, sadaa Hari boley daako. We should see beyond externals and whatever situation we are in we should try to use that particular situation to be Krishna conscious. If somebody finds maya in us we should be rather open and objective to analyze that and to do the needful to eradicate it. In this way we can progress step by step back to home back to Godhead. But the main thing is we need to chant Hare Krishna within our daily activities, while we are driving, or while we are working, in the morning when we get up, you can spend little time; we can chant Hare Krishna, in this way it helps to bring our consciousness into the proper attitude of service to Krishna. So that is why we chant every day, we try to chant 16 rounds to guarantee that to a good extent that if we try we can remain Krishna conscious. But even people living outside, they can gradually cultivate the practice and chant more and more Hare Krishna, keeping a regular minimum. Just like in our Naamahatta we have some people who chant 4 rounds a day, some 8 rounds and gradually they come up to 16. So in this way they can gradually develop their consciousness and their attitude with the help of the Holy Name. It is not easy to just suddenly change one’s attitude but by the power of Krishna’s name one can purify the consciousness. Those who are staying in the temple they are very fortunate, they have this total environment in which they can practice their Krishna consciousness. We have the temple here so that people coming from outside, we should preserve such a pure atmosphere here that someone will come and will think, oh, this is a temple, this is very holy, this is very pure, let me try to make a replica of this in my house by having temple, by having chanting, by having Krishna consciousness environment as much as possible. Let me take a little vibration from the temple and let it remain in the house. So, any questions? Question: Inaudible GM: How did I become? Well, material desires are always there, they are coming in the mind. I don’t allow any time to address those. I keep busy. Who can say no desires come? Desires may come in the mind. So we go back to Krishna and in the material body desire may come but that desire we dovetail it in Krishna’s service or we reject it. Even Prabhupad one time someone said I have no lust, Srila Prabhupad, I have no material desire. Prabhupad said, really, what is wrong with you! I have material lust but I have no time to address that. I have no time for that. I am too busy in Krishna’s service. The point is that nobody can say that in the material world, even if they were desire less, they shouldn’t say that because that would give – even if someone was a nitya siddha – they have no desire – which is very unlikely to find such souls in this world – but even if that were the case they should take the role as a conditioned soul to teach by example others. Even if one has some desire which comes in the mind, the desire is either dovetailed, seen if that can be used in any Krishna conscious purpose or if it is totally material, then rejected with appropriate disgust according to the nature of that particular thought. We stay so occupied in Krishna’s service that there is no chance for maya to come in. That is the secret. Question: Inaudible. GM: By people you mean devotees or anybody? We have a very fertile ability to create these different scenarios. Point is that in the Bhagavad Gita it is said that we should avoid fear, anger and illusion as obstacles in devotional service. If someone heard about the spiritual world as having persons we become fearful that in this world I am having so much trouble relating with people, if I go to the spiritual world I will have the same problem so I would rather just merge or something else, that is fear or anger because someone tries different spiritual processes and then finds that maybe some guru is not true or somebody has some defect or something wrong and so they get angry that nothing is real, nothing is true, I give it all up, I am just going to stay here in illusion. So this illusion and anger and fear, this has to be given up. This is the recommendation of the Bhagavad Gita. You may have difficulty relating with people here in the material world but in the spiritual world it is known as Vaikuntha. Automatically anyone who goes to Vaikuntha is in harmony with everyone else that is the nature. So in spiritual life we have to have a spiritual master and we have to surrender to him. And the spiritual master guides one, one has to be receptive to the advice of the spiritual master and he guides one how to avoid this type of personal conflict, maybe someone has a mentality which is very angry or very antagonistic, so the guru may give him such a service, he may be the night guard in the temple, so he never meets anyone, he only meets at Mangala Arti then sleeps, until a person gets enough of the edge off of him – that can be adjusted by the guru. But one has to take guru and has to take guidance to solve all these problems. How can a diseased man say I am diseased, now let me decide, I will go in the Brahma jyoti, I will do this, I will do that, we start making all these types of decisions and in the end you don’t go into the Brahma Jyoti but stay in the material world or you will be in a worse situation. The point is that first of all Brahma Jyoti, to a devotee when we hear that we think the material world is better, almost. It is like a spiritual suicide. Because in the material world there is a chance to go back to the spiritual world, the spiritual sky. But from Brahma Jyoti it is like a dead end. From there you can’t get out, you can’t go out anywhere except eventually you might fall back into the material world after indefinite period of unlimited time. So the thing is that anyone in this situation they should actually surrender to a bona fide spiritual master and allow the spiritual doctor, the guru to guide one in how to get over the difficulties. Otherwise if they try to speculate, I will do this, I will do that they are going to end up in some bad situation. We go to a doctor that I have a disease, I have a problem, I can’t get along with people, I am not happy when I do my devotional service or I don’t have an attachment for Krishna consciousness or these problems disturb my mind or whatever it may be, you go to the guru or representative of the guru, and we try to get these things purified by their advice. Just like if we have a physical disease we go to the doctor and say I have a belly ache, what should I do? He gives us some pills and it gets cured. But that coming back to the material world may be after trillions of creations. Or maybe after you know ten minutes, there is no - you can’t say when it will happen. Once you are there we are all beyond time. So the period that you are there is indefinite, it is beyond time. To a certain extent it is beyond influence of time so there is no person, we know they can come back, one will come back, other will not, we cannot say what is going to happen. Question: Inaudible. GM: For them they can first study the first parts of the Bhagavatam which deal with the Vishwarupa, understand the immense impersonal aspects of God and then gradually go into the personal form. The point is that the material world is not permanent, it is asat and the spiritual world is sat or eternal. This material world is a reflection of the eternal spiritual world, it is a reflection. But the reflection is not permanent. Therefore from one point of view it is not real. It is not actually false, it is temporary. But temporary reality means it is relative, it is not absolute. So the person realizes that the form of God or Krishna is not temporary. It is sat cit ananda, it is not of the same nature at all. If one can eventually understand that then they will have no difficulty. But because someone who is too attached to the material world even in a negative sense, that is an obstacle for their advancement. A person should not be over attached or repulsive or a person should see something as it is. You can also study the sankhya which is analytical study of the material world and teachings of Lord Kapila and then you can understand what is the material world and what is the spiritual world. They say that there is no form, there is no Supreme truth say the Buddhists. The impersonalists say the Supreme truth is niraakaara. One has no form. But if the Absolute Truth has no form then where has all this form come from? If something that is the ultimate truth is simply a void or simply rather an impersonal reality then from impersonal how does the personality and quality become manifest. How does something come from nothing? Because the Supreme truth is everything that relative truth has but in a perfect and complete manner, in a more complete manner, completely complete manner, therefore the Supreme Truth also has form but that form is of a different nature. It doesn’t have the shortcomings that material form has. Sometimes to understand that they have to first go and understand the Vishwarupa, understand what Brahma jyoti is, what is Paramatma, then finally they can realize what is Bhagavan. That Bhagavan is something categorically different. So for someone who is too attached to the impersonal, they may have to go a very gradual understanding and first understand the greatness of God and then gradually come into understanding His personal feature. And someone who is more open minded, more intelligent, they can immediately see that this material world is a reflection of the spiritual world. Reflection is two dimensional, the original object is three, the material world is three dimensional, and the spiritual world is the fourth dimension. In the fourth dimension these inebrieties don’t stand. So the same problems we find here with form and shape, there we don’t have those difficulties because there form and shape are also not limited to size, it goes beyond that. So I have to get ready for my 7.25 flight. So thank you all for your patience! Opportunity to serve the deities here and read the Bhagavatam for my purification. Srilat Prabhupad ki jai! Srimad Bhagavatam ki jai! Sri Sri Radha Kheer Chor Gopinath ki jai! Sri New Remuna Dham ki jai! Nitai Gaur ki jai! Sri Jagannath Baladev Subhadra ki jai! Gaur Premanandi!

Jayaraseshwari devi dasi 18 December 2015