Srimad Bhagavatam 8 . 19. 18 śrī-balir uvāca aho brāhmaṇa-dāyāda vācas te vṛddha-sammatāḥ  tvaṁ bālo bāliśa-matiḥ svārthaṁ praty abudho yathā

Bali Mahārāja said: O son of a brāhmaṇa, Your instructions are as good as those of learned and elderly persons. Nonetheless, You are a boy, and Your intelligence is insufficient. Thus You are not very prudent in regard to Your self-interest.

http://vedabase.com/en/sb/8/19/18 (link to purport)

So Vamanadev in the form of a dwarf boy approached Bali Maharaja for charity .

Bali Maharaja said, "All right. Whatever you want , you can have."

"All I want...What is the use of asking for more ? (If he asked for too much, it was not appropriate . one should take whatever he needs) "All I want is , three paces of land that I can pace with my own feet. "

Since he was a small dwarf boy , it appeared that he could only pace maximum 4 to 5 or 6 feet : three yards of land . What can someone do with that small quantity of land? So Bali Maharaja thought, "This boy is not very intelligent– coming to such a very wealthy person like me who is the ruler of the whole universe for such a small quantity of land of his 3 steps. I can give so much wealth to this boy ; so much land if he wants land. Why is he asking only for a small quantity of land?" So Bali Maharaja said, " My dear boy, obviously you are not very bright. Actually, Prabhupada said "If you go to a wealthy man, you should ask something appropriate from him."

What is the use of going to a big multimillionaire and saying, "Please my dear sir, I want to ask you something. And when he says, "Yes what would you like ? You say, "I'd like the cigarette ashes from your desk. What is the use of that? I can give you so much. Like that, if you go to the Krsna, you should ask appropriate charity, some people go to the Supreme Personality of Godhead and they say, "Give us our daily bread.

In India they have different forms of the lord , in different expansions of his energies in the form of demigods. And some people go to them at different junctions in their life. For instance, before the final exams in every high school and college all the young boys and girls line up to worship mother Sarasvati, the goddess of learning, to get good grades in their exams. So that time everyone is busy thinking, "I have to take the exams; let me take the blessing from the goddess of learning . Or young girls worship Lord Shiva in order to get a good husband. And we find that older , married women worship Krsna on the kalia demon , is a special moorthy of Krsna dancing on the head of kalia . And they pray "Although my husband is not a devotee , even though he is a demon, just like you delivered Kalia , please deliver my husband. These are all materialistic pious worship. People don't know what is the actual thing to pray for. So they go and ask for some temporary thing . Just like the yogi who got the benediction of the touchstone from sanatana goswami but later he wanted to know the real valuable thing from Sanatana Goswami , and then Sanatana Goswami gave him the hare Krsna mahamantra . So when we go to someone who is powerful, we should ask something appropriate : we go all the way to Krsna ,we go to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, what is the use for asking some temporary thing? The idea is that you shouldn't go to the supreme person and ask something and again and again– you have to keep going back . You should take what you need one time and that should be enough forever.

So Bali Maharaja is presenting like that , you're gonna come... you ask for little bit now , and you'r gonna come back and ask for a little bit again; rather, I got enough to give. So ask one time whatever you need and then you don't have to come back again. That was his idea. So when we go to Kṛṣṇa, we should ask him for something by getting which once, we don't have any more need. Of course in the material world, no matter how much one has , he is not satisfied if he doesn't have controlled senses , because the senses will always want more . Indra dev had to leave the heavenly planet for some time, and he gave the whole upper planetary system under the charge of another demigod , and although this demigod had the power of managing the entire upper planetary system which gave him control over all the planet (in one sense), he was not satisfied; his senses became uncontrolled , he wanted to enjoy the wife of indra also . But that he did not have the right to do . So he tried to cheat the wife of Indra by mystic power, taking the form of Indra and then trying to have illicit relation with Indra's wife. But then he got cursed. So even if we had the entire universe ,as the senses are uncontrolled , we still won't be happy. We'd want more and more.
Actually, the purport is that if we go to the supreme lord and we ask anything material that won't satisfy us . Although someone may think , "If I had million dollars . I would be satisfied." But there are many people who have million dollars ... they think it is not enough : "I buy a house for half a million, I buy a yacht for a quarter million, I only got enough left for a car and I'm broke. I really need 5 million" And it does not end. Somebody in charge of one country wants to take over a little bit of the next country. To actually be satisfied we should approach Krsna and ask from Him something that will completely satisfy.

It is explained in the bhagavat gita: eke ha kurunandana– if someone has single point in devotional service and loving devotion , he is totally satisfied, their mind is one-pointed, but for someone who has material desires bahu sakha hy anantas ca, the desires are multi-faceted . There are all types of desire . It is not that once you decide to enjoy material things, it's not that it is just one thing– it is everything ; so many types of thing . It is not that that you just want a car : you need a color TV , a house , you need a little land , you need a swimming pool, you need a– it just goes on and there is never end , if the senses are uncontrolled. If the senses are controlled , well, then one can be satisfied even with the very simple bed . But how does one control the senses ? The senses are only able to be controlled if one is in pure devotional service because then, one is basically peaceful ;they can be satisfied with a small amount of material possessions . Sometimes persons want to simplify matters due to being a little lazy, they want short-cut everything . They think they can find a solution to some problem, but that solution creates another problem. A little funny story how once there was a sage and he was meditating on the side of a river then he would bathe in his coupin , his loin-cloth. Then he wanted another loin-cloth because it had got wet , so he had two loin cloths. Then thought this is a trouble that I have to personally go and hang up my loin cloth , if I had someone to help, then it would be easier. Then he got a wife , so that the wife could hang up the loin cloth. And the wife needed a house ; then he had to work to get a house for his wife. And then the wife was hungry so she had to get some to grow some crops and they get a goat or cow for milk . Like this, things started to expand. Pretty soon, he had a little house , a little farm– everything. The wife said I need children to help me, to maintain all these things . So in this way he became completely entangled. And he finally thought all these is because I wanted an extra coupin. Then he went off and took sannyasa. So the material solution is itself another problem .

In Hawaii they had the problem of rats, I think. So they decided to import mongooses to take care of the rats, but the scientist made a mix-up and they realized that the mongooses are day animals and rats are night animals. So the mongooses in the day never saw rats , and when the Hawaiian rats came out at night, they never saw mongooses. So the rat's good or the mongoose good? The mongoose needs food. So they started eating–no snakes there– chickens and other things. So then they had mongoose problem. There was a suggestion to bring some kind of leopard to kill the mongoose but they thought that it might become another problem. So one solution makes another problem. In material life, we keep on making solutions . We made electricity so that we can make nuclear plant ; they have a nuclear plant, but then they don't know where to put the nuclear waste . So they trying to ask different states, "Would you allow us to put our nuclear waste in a dumping ground in your state? Nobody wants to have nuclear dumping ground, because eventually those things break and then it causes nuclear problem. So this is going on. In the modern world, they keep making new solutions, but the solutions create another problem. We wanted to get around fast, so we have the automobile; but then, the automobile will require roads. Now we have the super highways. And in the highways more people have died than the number of people who died in the whole 2nd world war. So the solution for getting around was automobile but that's causing a lot of deaths. And even the car manufacturers say, "Well, we cannot neglect safety." But there is no solution for the accidents . So like that you will find that always in the world, purely material solution just creates another problem. It just postpones the problem. The real solution has to be an integrated solution which includes the material and spiritual.. all the aspects. Then that is a natural solution.
There was one house holder, and he said that he was having a problem . His house was just too crowded : he just had, one little house, something like some of the little houses we have here– a little cottage. And he thought, "There's just not enough room!" I have my wife , two children, and it's too crowded." He went to one sage and said, "What to do ? I need a blessing or something . My house is too crowded; I have got one little house with one room and I have a wife and two children and it's very crowded."And the sage said, "The solution is, bring the cow into your house. So then he went to look for a cow, brought it into his house. But he realised, "This is even more difficult. He went back to the sage and said, "It is really crowded now . What to do ?" The sage said, "Well, you take the goat into the house . He went and brought the goat into the house. But he realized, "Oh, it is really crowded now." So he went back to the sage and said, "This is supposed to be a solution but it is even worse. "Then bring a tulasi plant inside," said the sage. Then he brought a tulsi plant into the house. Like this the sage kept telling this man to bring more and more things inside the house and, finally , the man said, "There is no room. I can't even move." The sage said, "All right take it all out again." So he took it all out : the cow, the goat, the tulsi plant, and all the other things that he had taken into his house. Then he came back and the sage said, "How is your house now?" And the man said, "Oh, so much room! It's very roomy. Because of our relative viewpoint, sometimes we think , "Oh, the solution is we have to do this, we have to do that but because it is relative , from that position we think that this would be enough, when we get that we need more and more. But actually in the same way, the sages do the reverse psychology. You think that this is not enough. All right, make it more crowded, then afterwards you take all the animals out... then you'll feel, "Oh, now I have so much room."

Actually, if we have the proper perspective, even what we have is sufficient. If we get more , we work and we get more(automatically), without sacrificing our spiritual life, that's all right. Everyone has a particular destiny. Someone may be wealthy or someone may not be. But by giving an honest day's work whatever the return is, one should be satisfied with that. That is the brahminical system. Not to sacrifice one's spiritual principles in order to just accumulate more and more. One's never gonna be satisfied, anyway.

You will find that, for instance, people say, "Let me go out and do some independent business and I will give some donation to Krsna in the future. Just like they sacrifice their devotional service, sometimes they also sacrifice their spiritual practices–neglecting their japa chanting of hare Kṛṣṇa, or neglecting morning programs. And they think, "Well I'll do this now and later on all will go." But then they get out of habit, they become spiritually weakened and they become susceptible to maya. So there are no circumstances anything worth sacrificing our spiritual life. So born in the world, born in ignorance, we don't know who we are, we don't know that we are not this body, we think that we are this body. We grow up... normally people stay for some time and produce some offspring, get a little old then gradually they die ; they're dead. Again they take rebirth. In this way they go through birth , they go through disease , old age , death, again re birth. And it is very difficult for anyone to figure out what is the real purpose of life.

The vast majority of people normally are just totally in ignorance; there is not much difference between them and the animals, except that they are a little more sophisticated. Animals sleeps on the ground and they sleep on the bed. In fact, in India some of the birds, I showed the devotees by gurukul that came to Mayapur (they can confirm this) that how the birds are making on a little palm tree their special nests. They make their special nest with a long entrance so only that particular bird can go inside– crows and other enemy birds can't go inside. Inside the nest, they have a little apartment there. But because the way the nest is constructed, it is very dark inside , so what the bird does is, it takes some mud and clay puts it inside its house and it catches a lightening bug and sticks the head of the lightening bug inside the clay and the little rear end of the lightening bug goes on blinking for three four days. So that provides illumination. Then not only that. They also build a little bungalow, another nest ; it has a stick at the bottom. And it's just for swinging. And the mother and the father bird sit on the swing and they swing back and forth in the warm weather. So the bird has so much intelligence : I mean, to do all these things. It is not that even a bird does not have practical intelligence. Sometimes of course we say that human being is more sophisticated, but even the animals–some of them– also have a certain degree of sophistication. But as a general rule , we can say that the human beings are more sophisticated in that they have more choice and more different inventions. But it is simply a degree of complication. Even the animals are quite practical, quite ingenious in different ways.

What is the big difference between the human being and the animal? The difference is that the human being can understand what is the purpose of life. But if you go to a normal human being in the material world who's conditioned, and say, "What is the purpose of life? they don't have the slightest idea. Make money? Be happy? wander around? listen to music? Die? They don't have any clear idea. What is the overall scheme ? what is the grand purpose to life? Have we come with any higher purpose ? They don't know. But a human being has the intelligence to know that there is the purpose to life– we can be freed from the laws of the material world. We can realize the Supreme Personality Godhead. We can go back to the spiritual world in this life time. It is the real purpose of human life. But instead people just imitate other people. They are born in a particular culture, follow particular materialistic religion and just continue to practise it without ever considering that there's a higher purpose, even though all the religious texts say that there is a spiritual world , there is a kingdom of God, there is a higher place to go to ; that the real happiness is the spiritual happiness. Real love is love for God. So much advice. But people in the material world are conditioned and they don't pay so much attention to these aspects. So in this way, they actually... gradually day by day , their valuable human life is spoiled. And again they take birth; another conditioned birth.

Here in New Talavana, we have a school to educate the children, so from five years of age they can start to understand what is the purpose of life. Prabhupda wanted to have a group of brahmanas , a group of spiritual teachers who could educate the world, and that's how the people become educated in the spiritual priority ; then automatically the society could be organised through varnashrama . But first we reqire brahamanas, persons who are dedicated to spritual realization. Brahamana means that they have controlled senses : they realize that the real priority of life is to be Krsna conscious, is to be God conscious. They can see that... this is like Prahalad Maharaja said, "The society at large they don't know : na te viduh swartha gatim hi visnu. They don't know that visnu, the Supreme Personality of Godhead is the real objective of life; that's the real purpose. Instead they go on acting like animals in a sophisticated way. The difference is that the animal is not responsible, so the animal does not have to take the reactions for what it does. For whatever a human being does, he is responsible under the laws of karma. But the brahamana knows what are the laws of nature; knows how to be in harmony with nature, knows how to avoid those activities that will further entangle, and knows how to guide others to become, and remain free from the stringent laws of the material world. Just like a small child is locked up in the little play pan given by the parent. It is not actually free to go everywhere. Similarly, the conditioned soul is bound by so many stringent laws. They think they are free because of ignorance. A little baby in the play pan thinks, "This is my domain , I can move here, I am totally free to pick up plastic toys, little balls. Sometimes the ball goes outside the play pan, and they cry and the parent throws it back in and they became very happy. This is the limit of the baby's ability to see the world.

Even big, so-called philosophers are not able to see beyond a very limited sphere in the modern world. They are only able to see the matter, and only aspects of matter ; not at all able to see the spirit or spiritual world , the anti-material world. And this is their limitation. So they want to play and manipulate with matter. So they invent nuclear weapon , invent different things. What is the practical value if it doesn't meet people closer to spiritual emancipation, to spiritual realisation? Therefore, in spite of having so many new inventions people are not happy. Because people are living without controlled senses and harmony with nature, more and more horrible diseases are always coming. Before there wasn't so much tuberculosis or cancer, there wasn't any aids; now all these things are coming, one by one. This all due to the reactions of the laws of karma due to uncontrolled senses.

Because of so-called material progress, are people really happier? It is a very essential question. This was the point that Prabhupada made : people are not happy, because there is imbalance . It's not properly balanced . We can use all these things in Krsna's service , if we have the higher objective. These are like so many zeros. We have to put the digit 1 before them. If we put number 1 before them, then all the zeros have meaning . Without number 1, without the Supreme Absolute Truth , everything is simply zero. In the end, it all gets perished.

Kṛṣṇa conscious devotees have the very great responsibility to practice and to preach, to live brahmana-style, teach by example to others. Lord Caitanya taught, "apani acarito drarma, poreke sikhao." One should teach others by his own example. That's why he was very strict that someone was taking up a particular role and he didn't maintain that example; he did not appreciate that , thus he became very heavy with Choto Haridas for not following strictly. Because haridas Thakura took the vow to chant everyday so many times the Hare Krsna Mahamantra and he would never fail, he was very dear to Lord Caitanya. Lord Caitanya made him the acarya of the holy name : namacarya, because he practically taught by his example how to properly chant the hare Krsna Mahamantra. Haridas Thakura, although born in a Mohammedan family, was considered the greatest of all Vaishnavas.

One day Advaita Goswami was perfoming the ceremony for the departed soul of his father, for the sraddha ceremony. It is customary that one offers a very big feast to Vishnu. And that feast prasadam is first offered to the brahamans present. And then it is offered to the departed soul of the deceased relatives so that by getting that spiritualized food stuff , in case that sprit soul has taken a lowly birth, or is stuck up in the subtle body as a ghost or something, he can be delivered and would be able to go on and take the next birth. So after offering the whole puja and everything it was time to offer the maha prasadam to someone. So many( 50 or 100) brahamanas were present. So Advaita Goswami said, "I want to offer this to Haridas Thakura, because he is a great vaishnava and therefore he is the greatest brahamana, greatest spiritual teacher. But they objected. Some of them said, "How can that be? He was not born a brahamana ; he was not born in that particular role as a teacher. He was born, rather as a meat-eater, a mleccha, or yavana, a Mohamadan. So Advaita Gosai said, "No he is the purest of all the brahamanas here. So, if you don't believe, according to the sastra brahamana simply by his breath , by mantra, he could ignite fire. So which of you brahamanas can ignite fire and prove your brahaminical tejas or potency?" Previously by mantra, various things could be performed like lighting a fire. Today the brahamanas are reduced in their potency. And materially they are not able to perform this type of mystic feats so easily. So Advaita offered a pile of wood before each of the brahamanas and they were going, "Shooooo!" making blowing noise ; they were blowing and saying mantras but no one could get the wood to ignite. In fact because of their offense to Haridas Thakura, in the whole city of Shantipur, nobody could light any fire. In those days they didn't have matches ; so they would take flint and they would hit flint and steel or something : they'd hit it and throw the spark in a piece of cotton and they'd fan the cotton. And there was a whole thing just to start a fire. But nobody could start a fire, nobody could cook any food, because they had offended Haridas Thakura. So then finally, after all the brahamanas tried and no one could light a fire , Advaita Gosai brought the wood before haridas Thakura. And Haridas Thakura chanted the mantra Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare / Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare and phuff! the fire was lit. Then everyone was quiet and haridas Thakura took the maha prasadam offered. Because one is strict to their vows , they get all potency , they get all respect. So brahamanas live by the standard of simple living. Their purpose is to teach others that one can get the real satisfaction , with the basic minimum of material facilities but by spiritual practice.

Actually, without spiritual practice, without Krsna consciousness, life is very dry, very empty. By trying to please the senses and the mind, there is a very limited kind of happiness that one gets. It's not that one does not feel happy ; certainly there is happiness in the material world. But that happiness is very infinitesimal, very limited. It's not enough to satisfy us. We have desires as big as the ocean, but the mind and senses are like small bottles. So you cannot fill the ocean of desire into a small bottle. This is because the senses are limited. The mind is bigger than the senses, but the spirit is even greater than the mind. So if we are spiritually satisfied, the mind and senses are automatically satisfied, but how can the senses gratify ultimately, the mind ? The mind has a much bigger desire. Just like we say that someone's eyes are bigger than the stomach . They may see a huge feast of prasadam.

Sometimes for Prabhupada's Vyasa-puja in Mayapur we cook 1,200 preparations. We fill up 20 or 30 tables 8ft long by 2 feet wide , filled with preparations : whole half of this, quarter of this room would be filled with offerings for Srila Prabhupada. Even if you see that, if you think, "I'd like to take one of every preparation, you couldn't even take a tea-spoon of every preparation. There would be mountain of prasadam like that. Even sometimes someone will try to take a little pinch of each one just to respect, practically it's impossible– so many preparations. Someone may have a desire to enjoy , but there is a limit of how much the body can take . So with this limited instrument that we have, it is not possible to actually satisfy all the aspirations of the mind. Somewhere, we have to put a limit.

Years ago in the 1960's, a big rock 'n' roll star was Janes Japlene. was. She was a person who wanted to really enjoy life to the maximum , but she ended up overdosing in drugs, we always want a little more, more and more and finally overdose. So people are always overdosing in sense gratification. And overdosing produces disease. Because of uncontrolled desire, and they want more and more and more and eventually they get into various kinds of even perverse activities and ultimately they create some kind of imbalance in nature that causes diseases in the society. When one through higher intelligence understands, "Ultimately, I am never gonna be satisfied simply by this body," one can decide, "Therefore let me realise the real spiritual satisfaction." That is that we can be satisfied spiritually, because Krsna is much greater than us souls. We can be satisfied by Krsna. But the mind can never be satisfied by this body; nor can the mind satisfy the soul. But the soul can be satisfied by Kṛṣṇa, because we are part of Krsna. So spiritually, as an eternal living entity, eternal soul, through the process of Krsna conscious bhakti yoga through meditation, through devotional service, through chanting , we can be satisfied. In the past, so many great sages, so many great devotees, all became satisfied.

Lord Caitanya explained, mukti bhukti siddhi kami sakalei asanto , krsna bhakta niskam ata eva santo , "Those who desire liberation , sense gratification, or mystic powers are all ultimately not satisfied." They are all not peaceful. Someone who is engaged in pure devotional service, who is a pure devotee, is always satisfied, therefore he is always peaceful. They don't have any other separate desire. Because we are part of Kṛṣṇa, it is natural for us to serve Krsna. The desire to serve Kṛṣṇa , to be with Kṛṣṇa, is not a foreign or extraneous kind of desire. It is a natural desire. Therefore one is very peaceful even in desiring. But any other type of desire always leaves one unfulfilled. And even when one achieves the object of desire, it is not complete. Our complete situation is to be in connection with Krsna. The way that... Viswamitra, the great sage, was a kshtriya, but he saw that the brahamana is more powerful; so he wanted to be a brahamana, and he did tapasya to become a brahamana and he became a brahamana. He thought, "Vasistha is more powerful than me. I want to be a brahamana." Whatever may be other reasons also , Viswamitra became a brahamana. Then he was still less powerful than Vasistha, who was a more powerful brahamana. And like this, Viswamitra would go from one level to the next. So being a brahamana, he would get into a fight with another brahamana, and that brahamana's mystic power would be greater , then he would get frustrated and would do more tapasya, more austerity and more practice of yoga and they get more mystic powers.

There are different types of yoga. There is mystic yoga, there is yoga of knowledge, and there's devotional yoga. Even the mystic yogis are always trying to get more and more power. One time one sudra came to Viswamitra and said, "I want to go to indraloka." And Viswamitra said, "All right. You can go to indraloka," then sent him up to indraloka by his mystic power. Just like Vamana Dev is now on indraloka with bali Maharaja. Bali Maharaja conquered indraloka. He conquered the entire planetary systems of the universe.

Many people like this to go to the other planet . They see these so many other planets. What's there? There are many wonderful planets in the universe. And some of these planets are much better than here. Here, it's not nice at all. We're a servant's- grade planet. There are 1st, 2nd, 3rd grade planets, where people don't have any suffering to speak of – very little suffering , very opulent. It's a 2nd grade planet. The sudra wanted to go to indraloka. The 1st grade is satya loka , difficult to get that but he wanted to go to indraloka, the 2nd grade. So viswamitra sends him up by his mystic power. Here is this ordinary labourer; he comes walking in, like steel worker or something ... the sudra walks in and here your indra is there with complete opulence : everyone is all heavenly people and all of a sudden, this guy comes in– you can imagine someone coming in blue jean or something. So Indra said, "What are you doing here? And the sudra goes, "Viswamitra sent me here." "What!!! You don't have the qualification to come here. You get back. Indra just kicks him off from this planet and sends him back to earth. And Viswamitra sees this Harishchandra(the sudra) coming back down and he says, "What's going on? No. Get back up! Viswamitra's mystic power was pushing him up and Indra's mystic power was pushing him down. Like this, Harish Chandra is just floating in the outer space he can't go up or down, because the two mystic powers are opposing. But Indra's mystic power is not due to his austerity , but due to his position and everything; so he had a greater reserve. So gradually, Viswamitra thought that he was getting depleted, that his mystic powers were running out. So he felt, "I am not going to able sustain this forever." So he used his mystic powers to create another indraloka planetary system instead and put Harishchandra there and said, "All right, you can be in charge of there. Now you are happy ?" He was quite happy; whether it was original or duplicate, it was just as good. But then Indra thought, "What's going on here? Now I've got a whole competitor planetary system. This is going to create a lot of unnecessary disturbance in the universe. So He went down to Viswamitra and said, "All right, look here. I'll make a deal. I will take your sudra in my planetary system if you wind up your additional planetary system." Viswamitra said, "All right." He made the deal and took Hariscahndra and wiped out the sudra and wiped out the other planetary system. So then Viswamitra didn't have any mystic power left. It was just like his battery was run down. So he had to again do more and more austerity to build up his mystic power. Then indra said, "Oh No !!! He is building up his mystic power. He offered a reward for any girl who could go down there and just stop this guy. Indra agin said, "If he gets his power, who knows what he's going to do next time. So he got Menoka to go down there. And she had mystic ankle bells, which could break a yogi's meditation. Viswamitra was meditating, but she just walked, chiiching! chiiching!... His eyes were closed in meditation but he could hear the sound. And the next thing you know, he cracks one eye open and it's all over. So beautiful! So Shakuntala was born. Then after that Viswamitra figured out what happened. He said, "I got cheated. This was a trick by Indra. So then again went back into his meditation. Like this he'd gradually then go, step by step until finally he reached a very exalted plane. He was told, " Through this process of mystic yoga, ultimately you can get to one point, but then you can't get beyond it. If you want to go beyond that, ultimately you have to surrender to Kṛṣṇa. Then you can actually be totally transcendental. With mystic powers you have the ability to manipulate the material world by your own psychic spiritual potency, but to actually go beyond the material world, you have to become a pure devotee.

In this age of kali, who has the force to do all this kind of austerity and get mystic power? Some people do a little austerity to levitate, but they have to have a rubber cushion, because they get up about three inches, they get so affected by their levitation that they just suddenly break their meditation, phoom! They plop down on the ground. From the fall, they'd break their bone; so they have to have rubber foam to cushion their fall. In other words, it is not very effective, even if you go up 6 feet. Viswamitra could create planets; he could go on any planet he wanted, by his mystic power. But still he was not satisfied in the end. So therefore the real solution of course is not to try to have mystic powers. Today, the new-age group looking into crystals , they want to read other people's minds– trying to do any little thing. These are all very minute little mystic powers. Nothing compared to the great yogis of the past. Rather than waste time in all these things (our time is very short) if we use life... Also on material side, they want to do the same thing in different way. They fly to other planets, but they use jets. This was a thing that prabhupada explained that one German scientist, when he was in India studying , he was asked, "What are you most impressed by? He said, "I am most impressed by pure devotion to Krsna. "Why is that ? Aren't you impressed by the mystic powers of the great yogis in India, their ability to levitate and go to other planets and do great things ?" he was asked again. He said, "No, because I see that by mystic powers, they want to be able to see something at a distance. Scientists want the same thing ; we do that by telescope. They can become very small, we do the same thing by microscope. They want to go to other places by their mystic powers, we do that by jets . So it's the same thing . It's simply that we do that by mechanical means, and they are doing it by the psychic means. But it is same basic purpose. But I see that devotional service to Krsna actually develops the eternal relationship with the supreme lord, to go to the spiritual world. This is something beyond the material ability.

Vamana dev came to Bali, asked for a few steps of land. Bali said, "You're a little bit foolish , you could ask me for so much. We come to the human form of life. we come to the association of the devotees , of Krsna. We can get different things from Kṛṣṇa, but if we go to Kṛṣṇa, you can get the greatest thing, which is actually Krsna Himself. Once we have a desire to serve Kṛṣṇa, once we have a desire to know about Krsna , know about the spiritual world, that is actually the most important thing , but maya will always try to distract us with these other lesser benefits. So we have to be fixed in our Krsna consciousness and not be distracted, otherwise it is like the child who has a valuable thing, but gets cheated by someone offering a lozenge, a sweetmeat in exchange for the valuable thing. We have the valuable jewel of Krsna consciousness in our hand , we can achieve love for Krsna , we can achieve the spiritual world, we can help the living entities to come out of their ignorance , come out of their bewilderment that they're this material body and help them to be able to realise that that they are eternal living entities. All these abilities are there, but maya will try to distract by various tricks. We should avoid that. We should go to Krsna and ask Krsna for the greatest blessing. Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare.

Any question? If we are uncontrolled , if our senses are uncontrolled, we can't be materially satisfied. If we are spiritually satisfied, if our senses are controlled, then we can be materially satisfied with a very little bit. Happiness means to gratify the senses making yourself materially satisfied. But the senses always want more. Just like if there is a big feast, you may want to eat so much. Your belly has got limited capacity. The Romans used to eat, take a feather and stick it into their throats and vomit; once again, they eat and vomit. Like that they just wanted to go on eating. The desire, whether it is eating or whether it is sex , whatever... Ultimately, the desires we have our body cannot even meet up with. So if the senses are uncontrolled, then there is no satisfaction. But if you are spiritually satisfied, then you can be materially satisfied with a very little : devotees are satisfied with some prasadam. With the regulated family. You can be satisfied with the very little. You don't need so much. But by being spiritually satisfied, you can be materially satisfied, but you are not attached to trying to unlimitedly enjoy the senses, we know that materially you just regulate yourself according to what is actually necessary for healthy peaceful life and your satisfaction is from spiritually , materially you are content. But as soon as you think whatever my senses want, I have to give it to them and you become go das, you become the slave of the senses. The senses are always wanting something, something we don't have. It's like a little child, three four years old, wants something: "Give me the moon father, I want the moon! I want the moon! Then how the father can give the moon to the child? He wants something that's impossible. Later, as they grow up, they know the moon he can't give me; maybe you can give me this. They start to be a little more realistic in terms of the material sphere. Just like we want things the senses are always demanding, but then we know , that's not possible , that's not possible; so by spiritual development, we can see what is really needed, what we need. How much food do we need? How much sleep do we need? Each person is different. For individual person, it should be considered: how much sex do they actually need to be peaceful? These are all given by the yoga process. What is the minimum, what is the basic norm that is sufficient for us to be materially peaceful if we are spiritually satisfied. Materially, we are always going to have demands as long as we have the body : the body has to eat , the body has to sleep etc., but how much? Therefore the yogi is regulated. He Regulates his material activity. Materially, he becomes content, because spiritually he is satisfied. The principle is spiritual satisfaction .

If someone gets a million dollars ,he takes what he needs for himself, for his basic requirements. He would give the surplusto Krsna or he would give a certain percentage based upon the advice of the acarya ,to Krsna. And if someone gets another million he'd do the same thing . We have the grandson of Henry Ford , Alfred Ford , Ambarish das. He's got many millions of dollars. Prabhupada never told him to throw his money away. He said to him, "Go on investing it, and use this money for promoting Krsna consciousness. He just contributed the million dollars to temple in Mayapur to build the memorial, finishing the memorial to Srila Prabhupada Samadhi. If we get another million, we will use it for the same purpose. We want to build 30 to 50 million dollar temple in Mayapur. So we are planning rooms for millions of dollars, but the point is that we don't want to use the money to increase our living standard. We are going to continue to eat the same Krsna prasadam that we are eating now . if somebody gives a million dollars we will use it to build the facilities so that millions of people can come and stay and learn about Kṛṣṇa. We would like to build the Caitanya World. Like the Distney World , we'll have Caitanya World, but there, instead of Micky Mouse , we will have Krsna conscious theme parks , Krsna conscious rides. We will give you the world of time , world of karma , there are nine different worlds, I forget what all are. One of them is showing spiritual world : showing Vrindavana, Dwaraka , Ayodhya. There, you can get blessed by big Hanuman, who would go around, play with the kids . We are planning, here on this project , that if someone gives a million of dollars we will pay off some of the mortgages, so we don't have to pay so much interest to the bank . Build the memorial for Prabhupada. Build the nice Gurukul school . Build nice facility for the people to come and stay. We'll build also a special auditorium for multimedia and cinema show , so people can come and see Krsna conscious presentation . In the future we could even have a theme park here, if we have enough money. Disney World is apparently only on 125 acres . So we've got plenty of those here, but the devotees after a certain point, don't need to complicate their life any more... they don't need to increase it anymore. But if you are Henry Ford's grandson, if you have the particular... He lives in a good apartment . He has a nice car. They do their particular devotional service, guided by the guru ; the guru advises them how they can use the money and not be entangled in maya. We don't believe in throwing things away . For ourselves, we would refuse them, because we have so much work for Krsna , we will accept and give it to Krsna . For ourselves we take what we need , but for Krsna we can accept unlimitedly. Yeah, may be that someone( prabhupada explained that)... Say a child is born in the family of a devotee because of their good karma , they get such a birth , sukriti, it maybe that even in a few years, they are able to finish up whatever balanced karma they have ; so they don't need to live the long to go back to godhead. If they grow older, maybe they'll fall in maya and they'll get new karmas... so they at that time by seeing a few aratis, by taking some caranmrita, they already finished their business ; they go back , just like srivasa's son.

Srivas's son Gopal died when he was about 12 years old. And the wife was crying , "Why this is happening?" Everyone was crying; they were so upset. Of course Lord Caitanya then brought his son back to life, and the son spoke to them and told them how he had already gone on to a better place , how he was taken by Krsna , why they bring him back again, stop up his progress , and they were all shocked; but they were also satisfied that the son was dead but had gone on. Had he remained alive, eventually, he will grow up, he will get a job , get a house and go on , like that . He's already gone into his next development. He was in this family for this period of time , he benefitted by that then he went on . But of course Srivas Thakura had the benefit of Lord Caitanya bringing his son back from death. And the mother , the wife of Srivas and other relatives, after seeing that, they had no more question. They were completely satisfied . They said all right, "You can go on , sorry for calling you back , stopping your progress. We love you.

You may not have any one to bring back children from death and make them speak like Chitraketu's son or like Srivas Pandit's son. We can know philosophically what is the meaning of that. Maya is always there giving her ideas . Kṛṣṇa's ideas are already there in the sastra , from the guru. We have to take our intelligence from the spirituality , then we won't be affected; that is the test. Maya is always there and Krsna is always there , but the test is that in any circumstance, we have to take Krsna and reject maya. Where maya offers sense gratification or there is some apparent material misfortune that happens, we remain fix in our devotional service , we have to do our duties , we are not the ultimate controller of our situations , so in any circumstances, we have to remain fixed, fulfilling order of Krsna and the guru . I don't know how to categorise exactly what is maya's test and Kṛṣṇa's test . Every time maya tests, and Krsna is watching , maya is offering sense gratification , that is our test. Sometimes, Krsna puts a devotee... takes away something from the devotee. Krsna says this is his test. Sometimes he takes something away from the devotee–some material opulence or something – if the devotee is overly attached, because it is an obstacle in the devotee's path, by Kṛṣṇa doing that , then the devotee realizes that this is not so important , he realizes to take shelter of Krsna and not take shelter of the material objects . Krsna says that this is not the greatest level of devotion. The greatest devotee is one who even though they have all kinds of material facility and opulence that they are not falsely proud of that. They never waver in their devotional service, even though they have material facility. Normally , we get a little material facility and we off track.

I have a disciple in the South America. He was doing devotional service. He got an inheritance of 18 thousand dollars, which in South America is like a fortune. He left Krsna consciousness, he just broke every principle conceivable , and did so many sinful activities until all his money ran out . Then he came back to the temple completely burnt out, wanted to again get a position, you know... It's a real sudra kind of mentality. You get a little bit and you forget everything. It's like the person works all month to get a pay check, and the first thing they do is get drunk. It shouldn't be like that. Here we have, we get a little bit of opportunity for sense gratification, and whopee! we forget Krsna consciousness. And after the material situation is finished , then "O I am suffering again , let's go back to Krsna consciousness ." That's lack of character , lower than the sudra kind of mentality ; even the sudras don't do that.

Just like the government , if you win a lottery they don't give it to you one time. People waste it. Now they give it to you in 20 year instalments, one year at a time. So like that we need to regulate ourselves. If we take in one time, we will be in illusion. But the mature devotee won't do something like that. Even if they get some material facility they realise , I'm not going to allow myself to get intoxicated by this , I'm going to use it for Krsna properly. There are many devotees who are very strong . I know one devotee ,his father offered a million dollars if he would stop being a devotee. But he refused. The father said , "If you stop being a devotee , I will put a million of dollars in the bank account and it's yours. You just have to leave Kṛṣṇa consciousness!" Just like Prahlada Maharaja was offered everything , he could be the ruler of the whole universe ,he just had to accept his father and give up Kṛṣṇa. He said, "I' ll accept everything you say dad, but I can't accept you, because you are not the supreme. How can I accept that you are the supreme ? You're not. Your power also comes from Lord Krsna. If someone wants to give for Kṛṣṇa, all right, we'll use it. We have to be mature enough not to use it for sense gratification ; we don't want to use one cent for sense gratification. We only we want to do what is authorised. Otherwise, we get entangled in the material world. Therefore we only want to eat prasadam , we only want to do devotional service , We take enough so we will be able to practice our Krsna consciousness peacefully . More than that, we don't need.

A Vaishnava is supposed to be greater than a brahamana. Brahamanas also have the same ethics. Chanakya Pandit was offered Prime Ministership of the entire empire of king Chandragupta. He was offered a huge palace, big salary. I'll become your Prime Minister on the condition that I won't to stay in any palace and won't take any salary. I want to live in a grass hut outside the palace compound. Instead of being an independent thinker I am going to be obliged to you when I am Prime Minister. I'll the Prime Minister as long as I can keep my independence status , and I am not dependent upon you. I am only doing it because I'm concerned about the welfare of your empire with all the millions of people living here , that they can be organised nicely for their progressive, material and spiritual development ; otherwise I have no interest. I am very happy living in my grass hut and doing my religious practice, my spiritual practice; that was only 2000 years ago. Under the guidance of Chanakya Kautilya , Chandragupta's empire covered the entire northern, southern asia, the northern area has the himalayas.

That was the ethics by which a brahamana lives. Now they want the respect of a brahamana , the opulence of the kshtrya , the independence of vaisya , the habits of the sudra.
When one's a pure devotee who is surrendered to Kṛṣṇa, then Krsna directly controls everything personally with that devotee. If one is not cent percent pure , upto whatever extent he's not pure and still has different desires , different attachments, different material conditionings, he is subject to the laws of karma , and he has to suffer a certain degree of reaction. Krsna reduces that suffering( makes it a token), he may organise what comes before or after , but the suffering that one endures is really due to his own previous karma , however it reduced might be . So it has the sanction of Kṛṣṇa. Nothing happens without the sanction of Kṛṣṇa. But some may be of a different category : those things that happen due to our previous karmas not sanctioned by Kṛṣṇa. Therefore, depending on how we react to those things, we can also continue to advance in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. There are some things which are directly done by Kṛṣṇa, which is not according to the karma. It is just directly His own desire . And then of course there is the normal conditioned soul ; Krsna allows the karma to go on mechanically and he normally doesn't interfere. He only interferes in regard to the devotees. So when someone surrenders to Kṛṣṇa, he takes charge of the karma and he applies it, but it's still one's own karma.

There is one type of level of devotional service where the devotee is so completely surrendered to Krsna that he doesn't even know what his body is doing. His body is taken over by Kṛṣṇa; h is completely absorbed in his relationship with Kṛṣṇa. There are some acaryas like that. Although they are physically visible in this world, their consciousness is totally in the spiritual world. And the material body is just being directed by Krsna, it is just like you walk without thinking , they are walking and doing things is being handled by Krsna. But everything they are doing is completely on the spiritual platform. So they are not at all preoccupied with their body. That state we cannot imitate, but there is such a state .

Transcribed by H.G. Viswambhar Bonomali Das (Kolkata)