19860926 Srimad-Bhagavatam.5.10.10 The Topmost From of Spiritual Realization @ Detroit, USA
sthaulyaṁ kārśyaṁ vyādhaya ādhayaś ca kṣut tṛḍ bhayaṁ kalir icchā jarā ca nidrā ratir manyur ahaṁ madaḥ śuco dehena jātasya hi me na santi
TRANSLATION: Fatness, thinness, bodily and mental distress, thirst, hunger, fear, disagreement, desires for material happiness, old age, sleep, attachment for material possessions, anger, lamentation, illusion and identification of the body with the self are all transformations of the material covering of the spirit soul. A person absorbed in the material bodily conception is affected by these things, but I am free from all bodily conceptions. Consequently I am neither fat nor skinny nor anything else you have mentioned.
Jada Bharat has been insulted. At least the king thought he was insulting Jada Bharat by calling him various names to encourage him or to chastise him for not carrying his palanquin properly. The king was telling Jada Bharat How troublesome this is, my dear brother. You certainly appear very fatigued because you have carried this palanquin alone without assistance for a long time and for a long distance. Besides that, due to your old age you have become greatly troubled. My dear friend, I see that you are not very firm, nor very strong and stout. Aren’t your fellow carriers cooperating with you? In this way the King criticized Jaḍa Bharata with sarcastic words, yet despite being criticized in this way, Jaḍa Bharata had no bodily conception of the situation. He knew that he was not the body, for he had attained his spiritual identity. He was neither fat, lean nor thin, nor had he anything to do with a lump of matter, a combination of the five gross and three subtle elements. He had nothing to do with the material body and its two hands and legs. In other words, he had completely realized his spiritual identity [ahaṁ brahmāsmi]. He was therefore unaffected by this sarcastic criticism from the King. Without saying anything, he continued carrying the palanquin as before. As before means when he was carrying the palanquin he was very concerned not to get any karmas. He just did what he was told. He was told to carry the palanquin so he was doing it. But when he was walking he saw that there were some ants on the ground. So to avoid stepping on the ants he was hopping and stepping. But apparently the technique for carrying a palanquin is everybody has to walk in step – left right left. So he is walking left right right left left right right left. And so the whole thing is going this way and that way. So then the king is becoming completely shaken up and he is afraid possibly fall down or something. So he became very angry and said, “You rascal, what are you doing? Are you dead despite the life within your body? Do you not know I’m your master? Are you disregarding me and not carrying out my order? For this disobedience, I shall now punish you, just as Yamaraj the superintendent of death punishes sinful people. I shall give you proper treatment so that you will come to your senses and do the correct thing.” In other words the king was very angry. Thinking himself a king, King Rahūgaṇa was in the bodily conception and was influenced by material nature’s modes of passion and ignorance. Due to madness, he chastised Jaḍa Bharata with uncalled-for and contradictory words. Jaḍa Bharata was a topmost devotee and the dear abode of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Although considering himself very learned, the King did not know about the position of an advanced devotee situated in devotional service, nor did he know his characteristics. Jaḍa Bharata was the residence of the Supreme Personality of Godhead; he always carried the form of the Lord within his heart. He was the dear friend of all living beings, and he did not entertain any bodily conception. He therefore smiled and spoke the following words. Then he was speaking. The great brāhmaṇa Jaḍa Bharata said: My dear King and hero, whatever you have spoken sarcastically is certainly true. Actually these are not simply words of chastisement, for the body is the carrier. The load carried by the body does not belong to me, for I am the spirit soul. There is no contradiction in your statements because I am different from the body. I am not the carrier of the palanquin; the body is the carrier. Certainly, as you have hinted, I have not labored carrying the palanquin, for I am detached from the body. You have said that I am not stout and strong, and these words are befitting a person who does not know the distinction between the body and the soul. The body may be fat or thin, but no learned man would say such things of the spirit soul. As far as the spirit soul is concerned, I am neither fat nor skinny; therefore you are correct when you say that I am not very stout. Also, if the object of this journey and the path leading there were mine, there would be many troubles for me, but because they relate not to me but to my body, there is no trouble at all. Then today’s verse. TRANSLATION: Fatness, thinness, bodily and mental distress, thirst, hunger, fear, disagreement, desires for material happiness, old age, sleep, attachment for material possessions, anger, lamentation, illusion and identification of the body with the self are all transformations of the material covering of the spirit soul. A person absorbed in the material bodily conception is affected by these things, but I am free from all bodily conceptions. Consequently I am neither fat nor skinny nor anything else you have mentioned. (10.45) So the king got more than he bargained for. He was a person very proud. Thought he was a king. He is in the bodily conception of life. He thought, “This is a coolie. This is a peon. And should be doing what my service. One of my subjects and I’m his lord.” And when he wasn’t doing his job, he got angry. He thought, “I’m the controller and this person is not being controlled properly. Therefore to control this person, I have to insult him and deflate him and threaten him and get him to subjugate his consciousness to mine.” So, of course Jada Bharat after already being through two different births – after being the emperor of the entire world and then renouncing and then getting attached to a deer and becoming a deer in next life and this time totally being self-realized, he was ready for anything. He had already gone through worst, more serious things than this. He had been kidnapped by the pujaris of bhadrakali. Then taken, bathed and put a white cloth on. Put right on the sacrificial altar. You should tell someone to tell this pastime to … anyway. And was ready to have his head chopped off. He was just chanting, he was just meditating on Krishna. He was ready for whatever happened. Didn’t make any difference to him. He simply was somehow or other, keeping his mind on Krishna. Waiting for this time when he would leave the body. He wasn’t going to think of anything else. If he was going to leave by getting chopped, his head chopped off that would break his (12.34). He was thinking of Krishna the whole time, waiting for the axe to come down. He was ready for anything. He wasn’t just clinging on the lotus feet of the Lord. After blowing it, you know after completely messing up, thinking of a deer when he left his body, taking deer birth living near saints – he was having remembrances of the 3 births. This time he was totally fixed. That he wasn’t the body. After taking birth as a deer and you but you can have your human remembrance, this time he takes another birth. So he was very sure that he wasn’t that body. He was very sure remembering the 3 births that he wasn’t the body. So when the king was threatening him and everything, it was actually his mercy. So when before when he was ready to get his head chopped off, of course then being such a great devotee, Bhadra Kali herself manifested out of the deity along with her pisaca associates and proceeded to de-head, decapitate all of her pujaris, showing that the devotee of Krishna is more dear, more dear to Kali, more dear to Shiva than her own devotees. In India this is actually an important point. People, they spend so much time worshipping Shakti. Worshipping Shiva. They don’t realise that the dearest to the lord, the dearest to even Kali or Durga is Krishna’s devotee. Dear to Shiva than anyone is the devotee of Krishna. That’s why Lord Shiva came out of his own lake in Kailash when the Pracetas where there and said, “Because you are devotees of Krishna, you are very dear to me. Therefore I’m going to … The devotees of Krishna are most dear to me. Therefore I’m going to give you spiritual knowledge. Then he taught them his stotram or prayer, glorification of Krishna. So here the King, he was in bodily concept of life. So he was chastising Jada Bharat. Actually in the Bhagavat Gita chapter 13, verse 12 Lord gives 20 factors of knowledge. There it mentions that to be free of bodily concept of life, is one of the factors of knowledge. And that false ego or identification of body as the self, one should be free of that, because that’s one of the aspects of ignorance. So this king is in ignorance and Jada Bharat is in knowledge. So he is … Normally people in ignorance, when you preach to give them knowledge, they become angry. In this case, Jada Bharat, he is so free from the bodily concept of life that he doesn’t have any duplicity. One of the other factors of knowledge is known as simplicity. Simplicity means that you can tell the truth even to an enemy with such straight forwardness, without duplicity. Jada Bharat, he just without any, was so simple that when he was chastised with all these things, he simply gave his reply without considering anything else. Just telling, “This is the truth”. He just told it. Someone might, in a bodily concept of life might be afraid that if I say something like this to the king, he’s going to come down (16.43). But Jada Bharat was actually completely free from the bodily concept. We cannot imitate that cent percent. His position was very unique. Like say a devotee is accosted (?) in sankirtan, one can take actions to protect the body even though one may not consider himself the body. So long as one is using the body as a vehicle, one can take steps to protect the body. Just as Nitai and Haridas, when they went and preached to Jagai Madhai. And Jagai Madhai started to chase them. Then Nitai and Haridas they started to run. Jagai and Madhai were saying, “Beat them. Who are they are telling us to chant Hare Krishna. We are going to give them a lesson. Beat them. Get them.” So then Haridas and Nitai were running. Wasn’t that they were in bodily concept of life. Just that they were protecting their body for further serve. Haridas Thakur was a bit older. Because of his age, he was being hard pressed to run from Jagai Madhai. So he just said, “I don’t know how much further I can go.” So then Nitai and Haridas, then they finally went into one little alley way – hid behind the trough for feeding the horses. Jagai Madhai looked. Didn’t see them. Went on. This way they escaped. So here Jada Bharat, he is directly telling the king this is what this is. What you are saying is contradictory. These things are correct, these things are incorrect. So he goes out to give more instructions which are very illuminating. So the conception of course in America or in the western world is very much in tune with the king’s perception. People are very much absorbed in the bodily concept of life. And therefore, these things mentioned here have the reverse effect. Fatness and thinness – people are very upset. Someone is too fat, too thin. They get all worried. And show some kind of bodily distress, show a picture of a Sudanese, I don’t know what they are. Ethiopia or something, people they become very distressed to see the bodily distress. To see thirst or hunger. They identify so strongly with thirst or hunger that if they see that they become very affected. Of course even a Vaishnava doesn’t want to see any one suffer. Vaishnava has a broader vision, beyond the body. The bodily suffering is due ultimately to our identification with the body. One should not just think how to relieve the immediate distress but how to permanently end it by giving spiritual knowledge. Sometimes people say they are not afraid of death. But Srila Prabhupada explains this is totally artificial. That everybody is afraid of death. Some danger comes then immediately there is disagreement – arguing between two people. This is very prevalent in the bodily concept of life because each body has its own set of senses and the field of the senses have different type of desires. So it’s never that two bodies are exactly in tune. Even though husband and wife, by fire sacrifice are they are united together and they become one, if the goal of life is kept as satisfying the senses, then there is bound to be conflicts. In India it’s customary that people come up and they want to touch the feet of a Guru. They want to get ashirvadam or blessings. But then if you ask, “what blessings do you want?” then they say, “My husband has got an ulcer. Please bless that it goes away.” Or “My son has got final exam coming up. Please bless that he will pass.” Something. Always give some material thing. You know even the most pious ladies who are there attending all the functions and everything they come and say, “The only thing I want is… I don’t want anything from Krishna. I’m totally selfless, selfless. The only thing I want is that my family will be very happy. For myself I don’t want anything. May my family be all peaceful and happy. May all they have plenty.” And what is the concept of peaceful and happy. Totally all material happiness. They’ll all be peaceful and happy if they are Krishna conscious. But that consciousness they don’t have. So Gour Kishore das Babaji was being barraged as soon as he became known that he was a siddha purush, that he was someone who had mystic opulence. He had pure devotion. Then everybody from far and wide – they were coming to him. Just like when Madhavendra Puri. In India is a very pious place. Just like when we heard last night from Atma tattva das who is not here right now. He was telling in Jaganntha Puri when they have the annual cart festival, carpenters come from 1000s of miles practically wrestling each other, anyway they can to be able to participate in building the rath cart. Because for every nail you hammer in that Rath cart, you get one less birth. So they are trying to that. They want to go there to be able to hammer as many nails in the Rath cart as they can. And he explained that in the Rath cart there are far more joints and nails than needed. Because they want to take advantage of the opportunity. People have piety to get dharma artha kama moksha, they are very enthusiastic. Just like Madhavendra Puri. When it was revealed that the deity had stolen the kheer for Madhavendra Puri, then everybody wanted to come and see who is this great devotee. Then they get his blessings. He ran off first so he wouldn’t get bombarded. Now it’s not so bad. Even if someone knows a pious person, kali yuga has set in a little more. In all the places they are not so eager. But still that tendency is there. But that time of, even a 100 years ago people were even more pious than today. So Gour Kishore das Babaji was being literally plagued by so many people coming. No. Not one person was asking, “Give me the harinam. Why you’re so great? What is your secret? Tell me.” They were simply saying, “Give me your blessings. Oh You’re great. Give me your blessings. I want to have a good husband.” Anything. He was kind of disgusted by the whole thing. So he went and he used to chant japa right next to the public urinal. I don’t know, even today in Navadwip, the public sewage system has not been changed. It’s all open air and runs by gravity system. So it means for a few miles while gravitation is slowly moving the night soil and things you get the aroma on the side of the road. Navadwip is famous for having its own brand of incense. The devotees when they go there, they are able still see the this this kind of natural system. The public urinal was no better. It’s not like the public urinal in the okay camps or something in America or the rest house. Public urinal means that simply a place everybody goes and relieves themselves and the urine just kind of sits there. And the sun dries it up. And that’s about it. And they don’t put even any kind of DNT or anything like that on it. It was a very smelly place. So nobody likes to go there for very long. They want to go do their business and get out. So anybody that’s in the bodily concept of life, they are not going to go there. So then Gour Kishore was a bit smart. He said alright. I’m going to sit here. So if somebody is in a, not in the bodily concept of life, they don’t care what it smells like, they are going to come here and get spiritual knowledge. But all those people who are going to come to me for some material benediction, because they are going to see this as a materially bad place, they are not going to come here. So he was doing like kind of trick. Prabhupada said the he had actually a very great sense of humor. So one time one very big, kind of like a small king, a zamindar came to him and said, “I’m going to have a big dharma Sabha. And I’m going to have all so many religious people come there and speak. So I want you to come there and be the president of the assembly.” He said, “No you simply want me to go there to enhance your own name and fame. If you get some big, famous sadhus there you will become more famous as a pious man. So you want to simply exploit me. You want to take me and use my name for your own name and fame. What’s the use of me going there?” “No no no. Not that. I’m simply coming as your disciple. I’m come as… Disciple means he follows the orders of the spiritual master. Not that he just takes the spiritual master and uses for his own name and fame. No. I’ll do whatever you say. I’m your disciple, I’m your servant. Whatever you say, I’ll do it.” “You’re just saying it but you won’t actually do it.” “No no whatever you say, I’ll do.” “Alright. If you will do whatever I say, then you just stay here with me and chant Hare Krishna.” “Ha ha ha…Hare Krishna HArei Krishna Haribol… He he he…please don’t mind. he he he” So he was very cleaver. It wasn’t that Gour Kishore wasn’t a preacher. But he wanted to preach pure devotional service. But he was very humble. He said he was not educated – didn’t know how to read and write. He was bit humble. But one time someone criticized Bhakti Siddhanta and said, “Why you are a Gostianandi? Your Guru is a bhajananandi. You should also be Bhajananandi.” He was another you know, a so called bhajananandi who was criticizing him for being a ghostianandi. He said, “You think my Guru is a bhajananandi? Then how he has inspired me with such a desire to preach? He has inspired me to spread this movement of Caitanya Mahaprabhu. He is not a bhajananandi. He is a gostiananadi. He desires the whole world to be Krishna devotees.” Actually Gour Kishore das babaji was a he was totally out of the bodily concept of life. He would eat out of a skull. He would eat out of a skull just to remind himself how he wasn’t the body. He was doing very severe austerity. Some devotees of Lord Caitanya are very austere some are very opulent. Different types of devotees are there. Different types of characteristics. Just like another devotee who I mentioned. We have a temple at his birth place– Pundarik Vidhyanidhi. Pundarik Vidhaynidhi was a very great devotee of Caitanya Mahaprabhu. In fact Lord Caitanya would feel separation from him sometimes. He would call out for him, “Pundarik, Pundarik!” When he saw Pundarik, He would embrace him. He would accept him as a senior devotee. Of course Pundarik Vidhyanidhi was actually the father of RAdharani come again to assist Lord Caitanya – Vrishabhanu. He became the Guru of Gadadhar. He was very wealthy. When he moved about, he moved about with so much wealth and pomp and palanquins – the whole thing. People thought that, “Well he is a materialist.” But if he saw anything that reminded him of Krishna he would go immediately into separation and faint. If anyone sang a song about Krishna or something – as soon as he remembered Krishna, he forgot everything. He was totally detached. He was so fixed in remembering Krishna. Madhavendra Puri was like that. Actually Madhavendra Puri, when he was travelling about Advaita Gosai was praying that how can we get all these people who are materialistic, how can we get them into pure devotional service. He was desiring like that but he felt that without Lord Caitanya personally coming how is it possible. So or without Krishna coming. He was thinking at that time very urgently how to deliver all these people. At that time Madhavendra Puri visited the house of Advaita Gosai. And Advaita Gosai could see that Madhavendra Puri, you know like you say, “How is the weather?” or something. People look and say, “Today’s a holocaust or clouds.” Something like that. Madhavendra Puri wasn’t like that. If you say something then he would look at the clouds and say, “Oh the cloud is the colour of Krishna.” Anything he’d look at he will start thinking of Krishna going in a separation, glorifying Krishna. I mean, it was just whatever he saw, he saw Krishna and then he would say, “Today the cloud does look like Krishna.” Whatever it was, it was totally Krishna conscious to the maximum degree. He was totally, although he was physically visible in this world, he was totally in the spiritual sky. Practically speaking, his consciousness was. So Advaita Gosai got great transcendental bliss in associating with MAdhavendra Puri. He gave him a very good reception and he decided, “I want to take mantra from this Guru because he is purely Krishna Conscious.” So Madhavendra Puri gave initiation to Maha Vishnu in His form as Advaita Gosai.And then, In fact when Lord Caitanya visited Advaita Gosai one time in Santipur, at that time it happened to be the anniversary of Madhavendra Puri’s coming to Santipur. So he had noted the date when Madhavendra Puri had visited his house. And every year on that day he had a special Puja for Madhavendra Puri. As soon as he told the devotees, Nityananda said, “Oh”. He grabbed some chandan and he started to … everyone was into it. They just started, all spontaneously preparing a festival for commemorating the visit of Madhavendra Puri. Just like we have a festival commemorating Prabhupada’s coming to America. This is a common thing, that in India wherever Lord Caitanya visited, if they know the day, that day will be celebrated as a special day- they call like Gauranga Agaman, Su Agaman. The arrival of the Lord on this day. For instance the Panihatti festival, the Cira Dohi mahotsav, the time when Nityananda arrived to Panihatti and they had that festival – they keep that date and every year they’re holding that. Or there is another festival which comes again in the October which is called the arrival of Gauranga –when Gauranga had come to Panihatti personally, on His way to Jagannath Puri. They celebrate that coming. They keep the date. So, for some temples, Prabhupada only visited once. Some temple maybe Madhavendra Puri came only once. But they’re celebrating every year. We have an annual celebration of Prabhupada’s arrival in Atlanta where he came twice- once in the airport once to the temple. And every… And devotees for hours and hours discuss every little thing. We bring in devotees who were there at that time from different temples and they mention every little thing, every move that Prabhupada made; how the devotes were preparing for his arrival; what was the circumstances involved; what were the different mayas that were eradicated. It’s amazing how each devotee has so many realisations even at that time when they had few days’ association with Prabhupada. The intense realization of different things. So Madhavendra Puri, he was such a devotee who was totally in Krishna consciousness. He had no bodily consciousness and because Advaita saw that: that he was prideless; that he was totally fixed in Krishna, then he gave, he took shelter of him. And that became an annual festival. You would be interested to know that even till this day, the sevaities or worshippers of that temple of Advaita Gosai known as Advaita Pad or Sita Nath Pad, they still have that annual festival of the coming of Madhavendra Puri. It’s actually mentioned in the Caitanya Bhagavat how that festival is performed. So in our sampradaya we have these devotees, these great acaryas. And some of them are very active in travelling all over the world and preaching all over the world and some may have even stayed in particular place and appear to be more absorbed in bhajan. But actually the disciplic succession is one of devotees who are very interested in seeing the number of devotees expand – it’s basically gostianandis. Maybe here and there a few side branches of some Bhajananandis. But the devotees they wanted to expand the movement of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu. Sometimes people misconstrue that the 6 goswamis were actually bhajananandis – they are only doing bhajans. But Narottama das he clarified that. He said that Lord Caitanya is Himself the supreme personality of Godhead who has got unlimited energies. Just like in the Seva svatara Upanishad it states parasa saktir vividhai visuyate - that the Lord has got different energies. Like that Lord Caitanya is Krishna and He has got different energies. Some of these energies write books, like Rupa Sanatana, Ragunatha Bhatta, Ragunatah, Gopal Bhatta and Jiva Gosai – the 6 goswamis. They wrote so many books. There are other energies like Srinivas acarya, they distributed those books. Srinivas Acarya, Narotta das Takur assisted him, Shyamananda Pandit assisted him. They took the books written by the goswamis and they brought those to the eastern part of India. At that time of Bharat in Navadwip; encountered thieves and other problems and they got the books back even after they were stolen and they got books copied and they distributed the books to different pundits; they convinced the pundits that these books are the absolute truth – they give the clearest understanding of the ultimate purpose of the vedas. And after those pundits were convinced of the books, they themselves again continued to expand it. And in this way the movement spread like anything based upon the books. Narottama das Thakur explained how these 2 types of energies are there – those who write books and those who print books and distribute them. So ofcourse it’s not that the 6 goswamis were bhajananandis and simply thinking about their own personal worship. They may have been totally absorbed in bhajana. A real gostianandi also is in bhajan. He is also worshipping Krishna. He is intimate. It doesn’t mean that the devotee who is desiring to do the intimate service for Lord Caitanya and satisfy His desire is not able to realize the highest level of Krishna consciousness. They certainly are. Bhakti Siddhanta said “tara ache jar sahetu prachar”. That those who have got spiritual compassion in life, those who have got real spiritual quality, they have, they preach out of a desire to satisfy the Lord. Preaching is not a material activity. It’s actually a very intimate service. So these goswamis are doing the greatest preaching. Just like, we see that. It’s very difficult. Prabhupada used to complain about it when he travelled a lot it was hard for him to write. He would go and stay one place for 2 months and would write. If you’re travelling a lot, it will be difficult to write. So they didn’t travel a lot. After Lord Caitanya left the planet, they went to Vrindavan and sat and they wrote all of these books. And they left the planet. They gave the duty to the next generation to distribute the books. Srila Prabhupada, of course he is kind of, he is just, Prabhupada is just astonishing because he embodies all these qualities. He simultaneously wrote the books, got the books printed, organized the distribution, did everything. During his life time 100s of over a 100 million books were already been distributed because of his pushing, his preaching. Same time he was writing the books. So that’s unique. Entire disciplic succession from Lord Caitanya on, apart from of course Bhakti Vinod Thakur and Bhakti Siddhanta – that particular quality is very unique. Of couse Bhakti Vinod Thakur wrote and also printed and distributed his books. But then he didn’t make temples so much. He made a temple at the birth place of Lord Caitanya. And Bhakti Siddhanta further expanded that and made printing press, books, temples. But Bhakti Vinod Thakur had the Nam hatta which Prabhupada told us to do to expand the Varnasram. The different previous acaryas did – some did more one thing or another. But Srila Prabhupada did something of all of the different aspects. Therefore he is completely, you can see how he has totally embodied all of the great qualities of the previous acaryas. It’s very evident. Therefore this Krishna consciousness movement is dedicated to preserving Srila Prabhupada’s teachings; preserving his message and to spreading it all over the world. For the next 10000 years it’s predicted Lord Caitanya’s movement would become the world’s religion, world way of life. So we are dedicated to first implementing that and then maintaining it. Of course Prabhupada he left us when we were in a very infant stage. Actually when Prabhupada was in Vrindavan, I remember one day a group of very big industrialists, Big. They are the heads of the Vishva Hindu Parishad, one of them, his father was a very close associate of Gandiji. So very big people with government, with politics, with the Hindu movement. They came to Prabhupada and asked him, “who is going to be the next?” Prabhupada said, “All my followers they are going to carry on my message. All my disciples.” When they left Prabhupada said, “They wanted to know whether I was going to appoint them. They wanted to be the sole authority in the movement.” They just came out of the sky blue – life members, Hindu leaders. They were hoping somehow they would be given the huge assets of ISKCON all over the world. So Prabhupada called the GBC members to his side when he told them that he was going to leave the planet. That Krishna was calling him. And at that time they said, “Srila Prabhupada when Bhakti Siddhanta left the planet, he was very disgusted with his followers.” “So are you leaving us because you are disgusted with us? Because we’ve so offensive?” He said, “No. You’re all sincere devotees and you’ve been serving very nicely. I’m not leaving for that reason. Krishna is simply calling me.’ He said “Just like these people have come here to ask me who’s going to be next. There are many people who are going to try to stop this movement. The thing I fear is that the world there is like an kind of ocean with huge timingila – sharks and whales and all kinds of. You are all very innocent. You are all naive. You are all very new.” He said, “That any one of you can be bewildered by the material energy. It’s very complex. It’s very dangerous. You have to all stay united. If you don’t stay united, then anyone of you by yourself, you can be misled. But I have confidence that all of you together, 20 of you try to implement my desires, then you won’t make a mistake.” Of course the key word there was “Implement my desire.” That our only purpose is to implement Prabhupada’s desires. Not to implement the desires of the massive Americans or Europeans or anyone or implement the desire of Indra or Ganesh or anybody. Simply implement the desire of Prabhupada. If we’re fixed on that particular “What did Prabhupada want? What would he have done? What’s his desire?” If everybody thinks that particular thought then better chance that we’ll come up with the right conclusion. So of course we see that in the movement there’s so many tests that come up. And that in preaching Prabhupada has advised us to watch out for different. He said that some overt dangers are there and some obvious dangers were there in India. He said that in Bombay the municipality they’re trying to take over our property. Watch out for the government that they don’t try to take over our land. Here in America we see how the so called anti-cult groups are trying to take over the property of the Krishna conscious temples in order to stop this religion, this spiritual movement. Those weren’t there when Prabhupada was present. Otherwise he’d probably have mentioned that. But they were trying to take over our temple in Bombay. They had bribed police and done various subversive things. So he said, “Watch out for these things. Then he said, “Watch out in Vrindavan. There are so many Goswamis who like to spiritually infiltrate and take over the movement by giving their ideas rather than the ideas I have given you.” Then he said, “Watch out in Mayapur, Navadvip. There are so many god brothers. These godbrothers they may try to… They are also very dangerous. They cannot do anything to help you but they can do a lot to harm you. They’d try to impose their concepts and take over the movement.” So Prabhupad’s vision of how he balanced everything, how he could see very clearly what the previous acaryas wanted and how he applied it to the modern time in the most practical mean most practical way. That vision is actually what we are all dedicated to further. Prabhupada said that “Anyone who is my disciple is my disciple, anyone who takes initiation from my any of my disciple is my grand disciple.” So everyone is connected with Srila Prabhupada. They are part of his disciplic succession. And no matter what happens we have direct connection with Srila Prabhupada. And our only duty is ultimately, whether we are children or grandchildren or great grandchildren or great great grandchildren or 50 generations from now, is to carry on Prabhupada’s desire for spreading Lord Caitanya’s message, for establishing Lord Caitanya’s desire in the entire world. Prabhupda doesn’t have his own desire. His desire was only to spread Lord Caitanya’s desire as was manifested by the previous acaryas. So reading about these great devotees like Jada Bharat who didn’t have any bodily concept of life, who were totally on the Brahma platform, totally on the transcendental platform, do their devotional service and how they would preach to the ignorant people we can see that how we have to also then take these teachings Prabhupada has given us. He put all these, these books, these verses, these purports are actually his personal ecstasy. His writing wasn’t like someone who writing and translating, like you hire a translator. Actually his purports were his own personal ecstasy. At the present moment all human society is laboring under the bodily conception. Therefore in the sastras people in this age are referred to as dui pada pashu – 2 legged animals. No one can be happy in a civilization conducted by such animals. Our Krishna Conscious movement is trying to raise fallen human society to the status of spiritual understanding. Prabhupada is writing this in a complete transcendental mood of compassion and ecstasy trying to bring the entire human civilization up. He wrote this so we can understand the perspective. That unless we are able to uplift the people to spiritual concept to get them out of the gross bodily concept they are never going to be happy. There can’t be any happiness. No matter how much donation they send to suffering people in Africa there is still going to be problems in the world unless people get above the bodily concept, unless the human society is raised up to the status of spiritual understanding. So all these lessons are actually Prabhupada’s special instructions for all of his followers so we can carry on the movement of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu, if we can know what was His desire. So we need to read these things every day. Nityam Bhagavata Sevaya – we need to remind ourselves every day. Like a type of spiritual bath for every day, we read Srila Prabhupada’s words and they fix in our consciousness what is our purpose, what is our objective, what is the proper frame of mind to have in order to be free from bodily concept, to be fixed in devotional service and thus to be blissful. So it says that even if one gets a syllable from a guru, what to speak of a whole mantra a person is eternally bene… just to get 1 letter, one akshara, one letter from a spiritual person, you becaome, for that spiritual gift you become unlimitedly indebted. Here we are getting so many 1000s of verse of the Srimad Bhagavatam with so many purports which have 1000s and 100s of 1000s and millions of aksharas or letters. Then how great is our…Everyone in the future who receives these books, how deeply they are indebted to Prabhupada for what he’s given us. Therefore we labour in the Krishna conscious movement but this labour is not labour of the body. It’s a labour of love. Therefore by serving in Krishna consciousness once if we keep our consciousness purified by chanting, we’re able to experience transcendental bliss with the labour of love. And we should work in that consciousness. If we start to take, if we start to see things in a different way when doing our service, it becomes a burden. Then we think that taking care of These deities is a burden. Taking the spiritual responsibility is a burden. Then that means they were finished. Burden of love means it’s no burden at all. The mother carrying the baby she loves, she doesn’t consider it to be a burden. Everyone else, they can’t figure out what is the mother lurking around that, you see, that bundle of whatever. But for the mother she loves her child. So for her it’s no no problem. She likes it. At least in the civilized society. So like that the Krishna conscious movement, we have to purify our consciousness so we see the things as labour of love and when we see then there is no difficulty is taking so much responsibility. Prabhupada took the responsibility to deliver the entire world. But if we start to see our consciousness becoming affected and we start to see things “Oh this is a burden. So many deities to dress, so many things to do.” That means our consciousness is not developing properly. Then we have to take it. then we have to start to take more care to the fundamental and purify our consciousness. And rule out any misconceptions that may be there. Rule out these bodily conceptions. In the Bhagavat Gita, in the Bhagavatam it says that whatever is bodily conception of life that should be given up. Giving it up is knowledge. And maintaining it is ignorance. So we should tamasoma jyotir gama… give up the ignorance and accept the knowledge. Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare Any questions? Hari Sauri Prabhu’s in Mayapur is writing his memoirs of Srila Prabhupada, his daily dairy. All the things, he has very good memory. And he has a lot of knowledge. He’s also written there was a time when Prabhupada was in Gujarat. He was giving a lot of lectures on how we wanted to preach in the villages. I didn’t know at that time but simultaneously I got a desire to… when we had that attack on Mayapur then I got the people organized. The communists wanted to close our temple and give it to the, to another religion for making into a type of… So I got the local people to become very active and we had a big procession of about 25,000 people and about 168 kirtan groups. And when we did that then everything … We did a march right through the villages of the different religions that were creating some problems with us and everything became very peaceful after that. And the government they thought we would withdraw the case, the false case they did against us that we and Bhavananda had fired on innocent people when in fact they had attacked us and they were breaking the temple apart and they had beaten and broken the arm of the headmaster of the Gurukul. They wouldn’t have stopped if we hadn’t used force. So 1977. Prabhupada said that he was supposed to be in Mayapur at that time and that they were actually going after him but instead we took the gun. He is actually very pleased with the sacrifice that Bhavananda made that time. They were all in prison. I had to go there and free him. And the police or judge said that they can’t since the villagers were not in favour. So then I got all the villagers in our favour and we had a big procession.
Tags: Jada Bharata; Krishna devotees are more dear to kali then her own devotees; Gour Kishore das babaji was a ghostianandi; Two types of energies of Lord Caitanya; Srila Prabhupada's instructons regarding his god brothers in Mayapur; Srila Prabhupada's instructions regarding babajis in Vrindavan; “Implement my desire"; 1977 fights in Mayapur; indebted to Guru even for 1 akshara what to speak of millions of them; Gauranga Agaman; Su agaman; people seek only material benefits from sadhus; 20 qualifations of a devotee
Transciber: Hemagopi Devi Dasi