19901031 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 3.23.39

The following is the lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on October 31^st 1990 in New Orleans, Louisiana. The class begins with a reading from the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, 3rd canto, chapter 23, verse 39.

tenāṣṭa-lokapa-vihāra-kulācalendra-
droṇīṣv anaṅga-sakha-māruta-saubhagāsu
siddhair nuto dyudhuni-pāta-śiva-svanāsu
reme ciraṁ dhanadaval-lalanā-varūthī

Translation: In that aerial mansion he travelled to the pleasure valleys of Mount Meru, which were rendered all the more beautiful by cool, gentle, fragrant breezes that stimulated passion. In these valleys, the treasurer of the gods, Kuvera, surrounded by beautiful women and praised by the Siddhas, generally enjoys pleasure. Kardama Muni also, surrounded by the beautiful damsels and his wife, went there and enjoyed for many, many years.

Purport (by Śrīla Prabhupāda): Kuvera is one of the eight demigods who are in charge of different directions of the universe. It is said that Indra is in charge of the eastern side of the universe, where the heavenly planet, or paradise, is situated. Similarly, Agni is in charge of the south-eastern portion of the universe; Yama, the demigod who punishes sinners, is in charge of the southern portion; Nirṛti is in charge of the south-western part of the universe; Varuṇa, the demigod in charge of the waters, is in charge of the western portion; Vāyu, who controls the air and who has wings to travel in the air, is in charge of the north-western part of the universe; and Kuvera, the treasurer of the demigods, is in charge of the northern part of the universe. All these demigods take pleasure in the valleys of Mount Meru, which is situated somewhere between the sun and the earth. In the aerial mansion, Kardama Muni travelled throughout the eight directions controlled by the different demigods described above, and as the demigods go to Mount Meru, he also went there to enjoy life. When one is surrounded by beautiful young girls, sex stimulation naturally becomes prominent. Kardama Muni was sexually stimulated, and he enjoyed his wife for many, many years in that part of Mount Meru. But his sex indulgence was praised by many, many Siddhas, beings who have attained perfection, because it was intended to produce good progeny for the good of universal affairs.

Thus ends the Bhaktivedanta Swami translation purport of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam CANTO 3, Chapter 23, Text 39, here in New Orleans, 1^st of November 1990, 504 Gaurabda, 31st of October.

Jayapatākā Swami: So this is the history of Kardama Muni and Devahūti. Kardama Muni was a great mystic yogī, one of the Prajāpatis, in charge of populating the universe with good progeny. And he was performing severe austerities for a long time, and his austerities and meditation was so pure that Lord Viṣṇu Himself appeared to him. Viṣṇu, who is the Supersoul of everyone’s heart, knew that Kardama Muni was not ready to take the renounced order of life immediately but wanted to go through the gṛhastha-āśrama and fulfil the instructions of his superiors to produce progeny. But after that, experiencing the householder life, he wanted to take renounced life. So Kardama Muni was concerned that he has a proper Kṛṣṇa Consciousness mate in order to pursue the household life. So after performing these austerities, Lord Viṣṇu blessed him that he would get a good Kṛṣṇa conscious wife and would be able to take to… leave the gṛhastha life and take the renounced order of life in due course. So, soon after that Manu came and appealed to Kardama Muni to accept his daughter. Although she was a great princess, she was very attracted by the austerity and spiritual force of Kardama Muni and wanted to marry him. He said that, since you desired to get married and this proposal is coming of its own accord, you don’t have to work for it. Sometimes, somebody wants to get married, they have to look a long time to get a proper wife, or a wife to get a proper husband. But here everything was coming of its own accord, so he was saying that, “It’s not very auspicious if you refuse something that is coming up of its own accord, when that’s something you want anyway. Because, if out of some false ego, you don’t take it because it’s first proposal. But then later on, you have to be embarrassed because you will be looking for the same thing and you may not get it.”

So anyway, so various, very tactful words, diplomatic words and [coughs] Svāyambhuva Manu makes his petition to Kardama Muni to accept Devahūti as his wife. But he remains in his hermitage in the mountains, meditating, and Devahūti for a long time was serving him, just like a menial maid servant there. So being a princess, they have so many people to take care of the princess, to wash her, to bathe her. So like the movie stars that get lot of beauty sleep and lot of care, Devahūti was extremely beautiful. But once she was working just as the wife of Kardama Muni in the āśrama, she became, kind of a strange, she didn’t have the opportunity for that type of intensive care. So she actually just became like an ordinary maid servant in terms of her complexion, her hair, everything. So, Kardama Muni, she requested to him one time when he said, “I am very satisfied with your service. What would you like?”

“Well, we got married with the purpose of having good Kṛṣṇa conscious children, so I would like to have children from you. But now I have become ugly and plain. So I am not so attractive anymore for you.”

And Kardama Muni said, “Yes, the purpose of marriage is to have at least one Kṛṣṇa Conscious child.” So he using mystic power called the various gandharva ladies to come and they took her under the water and bathed her and transformed her back to her former beauty. She came out of the water again as a beautiful princess, and so then Kardama Muni, in order to have children, he had to have sex life. In order to have sex life, he had to be attracted sexually to the other person, he had to be able to distinguish between a man and a woman. And so now that she was very nicely decorated... Even in Vedic, in the Vedas for the garbhādhāna-saṁskāra, says that the couple should be well decorated and be attractive to the other person, they think like that. So that the sexual desire would be stimulated, so that there can be procreation. So here, Kardama Muni he is kind of compacting his entire gṛhastha life into a period of one very short intensive period. He wants to experience what is a material pleasure but he is doing that in a way dovetailing it to Kṛṣṇa because his guru wanted that he produce—his father—that he produce progeny for the universe. So he promised his wife he would give one son and then he would leave and take sannyāsa. This is a kind of a different situation. His son would grow up and protect. When the son would grow up enough to protect the wife, then he would leave. That was the arrangement.

Just like here in America when two millionaires get married, sometimes they sign an agreement-who gets the money, how does it divide and whatever. There is some agreement nowadays. So this was like, a marriage agreement was there apart from the religious vows. He said that, “I am not going to remain with you forever. Only until your son is big enough to take care of you, then I am going.” So, this is explaining how he after going through these great austerities, he is now uniting with his wife to have children. So using some of his mystic potency, he has created a beautiful flying mansion. He is going to the gardens of the demigods. This is his honeymoon, you can say. He is going for experiencing what is the happiness of material life. After experiencing… of course things didn’t work out exactly as planned. He promised to give his wife a son, but the first child was a daughter. He was gonna leave but she said, “Wait, you said you were gonna give me a son”. So then he had to… nothing ever works out even for great yogīs exactly (laughter) Always some surprises. So none he did, in spite of what appears to be a very opulent situation of sense gratification, but that’s what it was, sense gratification, gṛhasthas have a license to have sense gratification.

One of the points of gṛhastha life is that, before one can take renounced life, one should have experienced what is the material happiness enough that one doesn’t have any more doubt that I missed something. Like somebody is a brahmacārī, and they may not feel determined to or ready to take renounced life because their mind is attracted to material things to some degree. It’s not peaceful. So going through the gṛhastha life, on one side is to regulate someone, to control the nature. Also, for some in this case, he was supposed to have children. Also, he wanted to understand what was material life. What was material happiness. So then, when he would renounce, it would be completed.

Like what happened one time was when Śaṅkarācārya was travelling and preaching, there was one great tantric yoginī, a lady tantric, same as this Halloween day I guess, applicable. She was someone who was expert at various type of tāmasika magical aspects of the Vedas. and many of these things are connected with sex life. So because at the age of nine Śaṅkarācārya had taken sannyāsa. So she challenged him to a debate. And so she asked him some kind of intimate question, which only someone who had sex life would know. But having taken sannyāsa, how could he reply it? So, she was trying to trick him because it was in a debate. Whoever can defeat the other person is the winner. So since his body—sannyāsa is for the duration of this body—his body was not to be polluted by, or be contaminated, or engaged in any kind of sex life. What he did is, he went into yogic meditation, left his body. And of course, now they call astral-projection, but this is something more than that. This is a more dynamic form of astral-projection, you can call it. But as a yogī, he left his body and in his subtle body he went. And there was just at that time there was a king who was on his death bed. He was dying. So just after the soul of the king left the body and went onto its next birth, then Śaṅkarācārya entered into the King’s body. Everybody was mourning, the wife… he sits up! You know “Whaaat!?” They thought he was dead, just at that second, soon as the one soul left, took by Yamadūtas or whoever, he entered into the body and came up. Then everybody “Oh he is back! What a remarkable recovery. (laughter). So that night he had relations with the queen. Queen was really surprised; he was on his death bed you know. (laughter) Experienced whatever the thing was that this tantric yoginī had challenged him that he didn’t know. And then, the next day the King dies again, and no one knows what is going on, from their point of view. Of course nobody knows what’s going on as far as their private life but the queen was pretty amazed.

All this time, Śaṅkarācārya is just like… his body is there in trance and everybody is waiting. After a couple of days or whatever he comes out of trance again and answers the question, completely surprising this yoginī, and defeats her. So without having broken his vow! Anyway this is possible for Śaṅkarācārya, great Lord Śiva incarnation. But we the Vaiṣṇavas don’t get in these type of debates. Even Rūpa and Sanātana Gosvāmī, someone came and some kind of material-learning-debate-lover, they just said “Okay, you are better than I am, Haribol” you know. They weren’t into protecting themselves. Onetime some big paṇḍita came like that and he said, “I challenge you to a debate Rūpa and Sanātana.”

He said, “You wanna say you are more scholarly than we are?”

He said “Yes.”

“Is there somewhere we can sign? We will sign there.” (laughter)

Who has time to waste arguing with these people? They don’t wanna know anything about Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. Then what happened was he went to see Jīva Gosvāmī. He said, “See I have already defeated your gurus, you can sign here also.”

“What!?!?” He couldn’t take that, because he knew Rūpa and Sanātana was much more learned than this guy. So then, he got into debate and defeated him. But then, later Rūpa and Sanātana heard about it and they were upset according to the story.

Externally they were upset, “Why you are wasting time arguing with these people, material wranglers.” Of course, it was because of honor of his guru that he did. But they are externally-internally they were probably satisfied that he was doing it for the right purpose. But externally, just to show that is not our purpose just to go on arguing with people. Even if we can defeat them, what’s the use?

So generally, the Vaiṣṇavas avoid this kind of wrangling. So back to the original point was that, in order to fully be fixed in pure Kṛṣṇa consciousness, the devotee needs to be firmly convinced that there is nothing more than Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Kṛṣṇa consciousness has everything that we need, it’s all that there is, in the sense that it is the spiritual eternal reality. Like Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura is saying:

nāma binā kichu nāhiko āro, caudda-bhuvana-mājhe

that in the 14 worlds there is nothing else but the holy name. This is the eternal reality. All the material things are simply temporary, they are not, they are just a flickering kind of superficial happiness. But in order to realize that, some people may realize that theoretically and they can remain fixed by experiencing Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. But generally, before one gets renunciation, they have to first experience what is actually the enjoyment. So, if that’s done in an unregulated, and in an improper way, without any kind of spiritual objective, then one can also get mislead.

So Kardama Muni had the authority to have children, he got married in a proper way, everything was done in a very proper way. At the same time, he enjoyed in a way which was like comparable not with just some human being, but compared on a level the way demigods enjoy. So whatever there was to enjoy in material householder life and sex life, without losing sight of the objective, or without completely going, but in a very wonderful kind of paradise kind of situation, he had his honeymoon and his wife conceived after this period of time. Unfortunately for him, or fortunate for Devahūti, whatever, he said “First a girl.”

So then she said, “You have to give me a son.”

So then they had to go through the whole thing once more. So after experiencing that, then Kardama Muni he was clear, “Okay this is what material life is.” Then he was determined “Okay, I can see now it’s a temporary happiness. This is the limit of it.” And he didn’t want any more of it. He had enough and then he wanted to go back to experiencing, to fully concentrating on transcendental realization.

So this is the reason why sex life is regulated in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. Why there is certain systems of marriage and so many other things, so that people can continue to progress on their spiritual life. This is not just like cats and dogs. That doesn’t mean that a householder doesn’t experience fully what is household life. Within the system given, they shouldn’t have any doubt that, “Okay I didn’t experience fully what gṛhastha life is. Because then, if they were trained to renounce life and their renunciation was not complete, they thought, ‘Well! because my household life wasn’t really happy, therefore because, I didn’t have the right wife, I didn’t really experience what sex life was or something fully.’ So then if that nags them in their mind, where is the question of the renunciation? Their renunciation was incomplete, and they may fall down, feeling uncomplete in their material experience.

Dakṣa of course, his lecture was on this point. His point was that, “You enjoy your whole life and then at the last bit you renounce.” That’s one way of doing it, but Dakṣa took it to the other extreme. Nārada Muni didn’t consider that someone has to go through the gṛhastha life to renounce, it is a question of a spiritual, transcendental knowledge. If someone can learn from others experience, sees that other people are enjoying material life but they are still not happy. So some people are able to, just by this viewing the situation in the world, they are able to be firm in their renunciation, firm in their vows of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So this way, Nārada Muni made the sons of Dakṣa into renounced devotees and they didn’t get married. But then if somebody doesn’t have that perspective and they want to experience, so there is a license Prabhupāda said. Gṛhastha life is a license for sense gratification. But that’s purified because it’s for having children, and it’s done in a regulated manner. So gṛhasthas live their whole life together, and they regularly try to have children according to the garbhādhāna-saṁskāra. Here, Kardama Muni was kind of different. His whole life, his whole gṛhastha life, he is doing tapasyā and at one-time, like kind of a honeymoon, he was just gonna have one time. Probably the yogīs also they know how to control themselves in all these activities, and I don’t want to go into all these explicit details but they have a lot of control. They can even create planets. They can do a lot of different things.

So he controlled himself, but his situation was one intense period of one procreation and then after that take renounced life. So it’s a kind of a different scenario, it’s kind of a condensed gṛhastha life. All in a few weeks or whatever. It worked out a couple of years because they had to wait for the children to be born, and then he went back to his meditation and left. That’s why the heading of this chapter’s called ‘Devahūti’s Lamentation’. She gets married, serves her husband, and then he experiences the gṛhastha happiness, gives her children and he is off. But that was the deal. He didn’t want to stay in the house for the whole life. He wanted to, he was a great yogī. He wasn’t an ordinary person and that was the arrangement they made. Of course Devahūti lost her husband in this way. But because Kardama Muni was such a great devotee, a great yogī, and because Devahūti was such a pious girl, she got Kapila Muni, the incarnation of Godhead as her son. You see, she did tremendous austerities. As a princess to live in a hermitage, just cleaning the pots, and cook and wash the āśrama, and get the firewood from the forest and do service, these are great austerities. Gṛhastha life means that the husband and wife also, it’s not only enjoyment, they have to also accept to do their services, and accept the austerities. It’s a responsible type of life. Unless one is able to completely dedicate oneself in the renounced life like Kardama Muni was able to, then there is no reason to separate from their wife. It’s not that Kardama Muni left his wife and went off with some other woman, or that he left and did some kind of materialistic activity. He only left because this was agreed that once his son was born and grown enough, he was going to just fully dedicate himself unto Kṛṣṇa Consciousness without bothering about the family. He was fully going to engage in devotional service and sannyāsa life. So that’s the only time when its considered legitimate for the husband to leave the family, because it’s for a higher purpose. If one leaves the family and just for some other sense gratification, then it’s considered irreligious.

So, these are stories that require a lot of understanding of the background to really get a proper perspective. Otherwise, it just seems like if you just open up to this particular verse that, ‘Well, Kardama Muni is having a real good time!’ you know, but doesn’t give you the actual perspective of what is his actual objective in the whole thing. The point is that one should never lose sight of the goal, and certainly he wasn’t losing sight of the goal. But he knew that for his renunciation to be complete, he had to also have a complete experience. And he didn’t want to mess around over fifty years to do it. He just wanted to do it and get it over with, and then he knew that, he knew that theoretically material life was not complete compared to spiritual life. So, he already knew what the conclusion was but just wanted to practically realize it. So that he would… and that’s the legitimate objective, that’s one of the objectives of household life, is to prepare one to be fully fixed in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. One doesn’t have to take sannyāsa to do that. Householders can also experience love of Kṛṣṇa even while being householders, and then they do become detached from the material life. Although as a householder, they have to live with certain material facilities. But they can at the same time develop through faith and devotion to guru and Kṛṣṇa, they can fully become more attached to Kṛṣṇa than they are to the material things. The material things are just part of their particular āśrama.

There is a story in Rāmānuja’s pastimes about how Rāmānuja tested. The people were complaining that there was this one gṛhastha. He was actually… it’s an interesting story that there was a big festival going on and they are taking the Deities in procession through the town. And everybody was looking at the Deities, and were worshipping the Deities, but there was this one handsome young man carrying an umbrella for a beautiful girl and just looking at her face the whole time. Just like this, you know to the point everyone was laughing at the guy. Like, he is like you know, just completely… staring at her face, carrying the umbrella, like completely infatuated to the point where the Deity is going by, and he don’t even know the deity is going by, and he doesn’t know there is 20000 people in the street. He is just completely infatuated by this girl. So then the whole festival goes by, he kinda walking through the town. Now, Rāmānuja is going back to the āśrama after the festival is over. And here he still sees this guy walking with a girl, holding umbrella you know. Down the street you know. And then he sends over a disciple and says, “You ask that person to come here. I want to talk to him.” Where is this guy walking over the town, like somebody in trance you know? He was in trance. So even as the disciple went over to talk to him, and he couldn’t even get his attention, he is just like *Gurudeva mimics* (laughter) Finally like, he tapped him on the shoulder, “Hey you know, how are you? Haribol!

And then he is like, “Whaat?”, like waking out of a dream, you know. “What is it you want?”

And then he said “Hey. There is Rāmānuja, the great sannyāsī, ācārya, yati-rāja. He would like to speak with you.”

*dazed tone* “Oh really? Oh yea yea, okay..” Then he goes over and bows down to Rāmānuja and he says, “Yes, I am very fortunate to meet you! How can I serve you?”

“Well! I just wanted to know that you don’t know there was just a huge festival? You are going, you are walking all over the town, holding this umbrella, looking at this woman’s face. You don’t know anything that’s going on. What is your idea? I don’t understand.”

He said, “Well, I am so and so. I am a great professional wrestler from such and such place, and I just can’t… when I look at her eyes, that’s all. I don’t need anything else. And I am just like, “I want to get married.”

“Are you married?”

He said, “No, I am not married, but in the future, we are thinking about getting married.” This is kind of an unusual situation in Vedic society. Normally, a young man, young woman and like that intimately connected. Because he was a wrestler which was not like, kind of really, it is kind of a entertainer type of. Not much different from now. Professional wrestlers. Not on the upper echelons of the society in terms of you know, civilization or something but, little bit at one side of society, in terms of Vedic society’s strict rules. And certainly to be a dancing girl or a courtier for some Lord or king was also kind of like a society girl and movie star or something. So it’s like they are kind of entertainers, like a little bit part of society that was not known for very strictly following all the rules like brāhmaṇas and kṣatriyas. So, but still, it is pretty unusual. So Rāmānuja said, “You are much better to get married walking the street like that with your girlfriend, it’s not really proper.” In those days. Anyway, Rāmānuja asked him that, “I have somebody that has more beautiful eyes. Are you are willing to see that person?”

“Sure, why not?”

“So you come with me, come and meet me at this place tonight at 6’o clock and I will show you more beautiful eyes.”

He said “I will come, but I can’t believe that there is anyone more beautiful eyes than my, my…” whatever. (laughter). Then the boy went back, took his umbrella and down the street again. (laughter) Samādhi!

That night he came and met Rāmānuja, and Rāmānuja took him to a very dark room into a place. Actually he was taking him into the temple. In those days, there was no electricity and stuff, about 1500 years ago; and the temple, the ārati was actually when you show the light, you were showing the whole Deity. So when the pūjāri when was doing an ārati, and then different parts of the Deity are being revealed, then he finally took the ārati lamp from the lotus feet up to the eyes, and when he saw the eyes of the deity, then that man was startled at this. He became amazed! His heart became purified by the blessings of Rāmānuja. He could realize the transcendental beauty of the lotus eyes of Lord Viṣṇu, and then he fell down at the feet of Rāmānuja and said that “Now I realized the most beautiful thing in the whole world! I was being infatuated by some temporary thing.” Anyway, Rāmānuja, he went back. And then that man went and preached to the girl. She actually was more devotional than the boy anyway. So the boy surrendered and became a disciple of Rāmānuja, and the girl, she also separately came and surrendered to Rāmānuja, and they became bhakta-bhaktin. And then Rāmānuja initiated him, initiated her and told them to get married. So then they lived together as gṛhasthas, but he was a very dedicated servitor of Rāmānuja. So, I think it’s the same person. I hope I didn’t get two stories mixed up, I think it’s the same person. But he would, when Rāmānuja would come back from the bathing in the Kaveri River, he would hold on to this disciple’s arm. He was very powerful, like a bodyguard or something. He would take him back. But he was very active servitor, and he was quite intelligent, actually. Industrious person. Is it the same couple? I think it’s the same. I think it’s the same couple. There is two, Ramanuja had one disciple like this who was a wrestler, and another one who was a vaiśya and the brāhmaṇas were envious of both. And there is two different stories, I don’t remember, but one of the stories, well i might have got it crisscrossed, was that, anyway the brāhmaṇas, they were complaining that, “Why Rāmānuja is giving so much attention to this non-brāhmaṇa, especially the gṛhastha.” So then Rāmānuja did a test, and he went into the āśrama of the brāhmaṇas and cut off everyone’s dhotis 6 yards, he just took off like few inches from each dhoti and mixed around some of the kaupīnas of the sannyāsīs. When they got up in the morning, and then they found… “Who ripped my dhoti!? Who took my kaupīna??” A big fight you know. (laughter) Yelling and screaming you know. And then they came up to Rāmānuja. “Someone is doing this disturbance in our āśrama.”

“You renounced the whole world and someone takes your kaupīna and you are so upset. (laughter) You got 6 yards of cloth, and someone takes a few inches, you kind of don’t have to comment.” He didn’t reveal that he is actually the one who instigated it. (laughter) But then next day he said, “Well, let’s test these gṛhasthas, where they really at. They must be really attached. You two go and you steal the jewels and the gold from the lady. She has got so many golden  ornaments. They must be very attached.”

So they snuck in. I don’t know if through the door or through the roof. Different kinds of versions of it. Meanwhile the wife, she is just kind of resting waiting for husband to come. She is lying on the bed, but she is fully dressed with her jewels on, because he was coming back a little later that night. So she was gonna give him the evening meal, so she wasn’t fully like dressed to go to bed, but she is kind of resting. So, she had her ornaments on and she saw that these two brāhmaṇas are coming, and said, “Well! They look like my godbrothers. Anyway, they must be wanting some service for the guru.” So she just played as if she was asleep, and they came and they saw that she is wearing all the jewelry, so then what to do? So then, they kind of carefully tried to take off the jewelry. But she is just playing she is asleep, she is aware. Because she is laying like this (sideways), half the jewelries under. So she thought, ‘Guru must need it for some reason. For some reason he doesn’t wanna ask, but must need it. I may only be able to give half, the other half is under me.’ So then she thought, ‘Let me just kind of roll over and give them the other half.’

So she rolls over and they freak out, “Oh my God! She woke up.” They run off you know. They get frightened and then they hide to see what happens.

A little while later, the husband comes, sees his wife with like half jewelry. (laughter) One earring, (laughter) one bracelet. “What happened?”

And she said “Well, like this I was lying down, I was awake, but I was resting a little bit. When I saw that brāhmaṇa disciples of our guru came. So I just waited. Maybe they need something. Since they’re coming like that sneaking, I didn’t say anything. But they came and they started taking the jewelries. I thought maybe the guru needs the jewelries. So I think, ‘What to do?’ So I kind of rolled over, playing like I am rolling over in my sleep, so that they could get the other half. But they ran off.”

The husband chastised, “This is because of your false ego. You thought you were giving to the guru. Nothing is yours; everything already belongs to the guru. Because of your false ego, you couldn’t give 100%, only 50% you could give. You thought it was yours.”

And then she said, “Yes.” She started crying. “I have no surrender to the guru actually. You know what, I should have realized that it was all the guru’s. Who am I to think I am giving. He is just coming and taking his own belongings.” So then the brāhmaṇas are like completely shocked. It was really not what they expected. They thought she was gonna scream, “Oh! They took our jewels!” They went back and they reported to Rāmānuja. So, Rāmānuja called the brāhmaṇas, “Ok, this is what happened.” They all heard the story.” They are all like amazed. “Ok so, who is more brahminical? I was actually the one who tore your dhotis. You have 6 meters of cloth, and you lost a few inches and you are all screaming. They have valuable gold which you could buy thousand dhotis with, and they lost, and they are lamenting, they couldn’t give everything to the guru if he wants it. And they all had to admit that they are much more brahminical than we are. So, we shouldn’t see a Vaiṣṇava as belonging to a particular caste. The Vaiṣṇavas are already considered to have all the qualities of a brāhmaṇa.

So in this way, the purpose of Kṛṣṇa consciousness is to achieve full devotional service. To see that everything is Kṛṣṇa’s. And some are even in a gṛhastha-āśrama, even though they have some license that they can have sense gratification in a regulated way, but then also many gṛhasthas, many examples of gṛhasthas who, although they are fulfilling their particular role as a gṛhastha, but their consciousness is more attached to Kṛṣṇa, more attached to the guru, and they see that ultimately everything is the property of guru and Kṛṣṇa. They may take the position humbly, in social, or in prayers that we’re attached gṛhasthas. But they may actually be more detached. Sometime, someone in renounced order, they are attached to very small things. Someone doesn’t, say, give them the respect, they get all offended. Some little thing happens, they get upset. So, there are simply different āśramas. Socially, Vedic society gives more respect to renunciation, because that’s a superficial thing that people can superficially see as renunciation. But the Vaiṣṇavas, they understand that more than even superficial renunciation is one’s actual attachment to Kṛṣṇa in devotional service, and one’s actual understanding that everything is Kṛṣṇa’s and that everything should be done for the pleasure of Kṛṣṇa. So that’s even a higher level of renunciation.

When Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura went to his guru and asked to take sannyāsa, he was a gṛhastha with 13 children. His guru told him that you are already a sannyāsī, you are already as good as sannyāsī because everything you do is for the pleasure of Kṛṣṇa, which is the real purpose of sannyāsa. Tridaṇḍī-sannyāsa means that words, thoughts and actions. These are the three daṇḍas. They should be offered through the control of the intelligence and the soul, for the pleasure of Lord Kṛṣṇa. That is the real meaning. Say someone is able to do that in gṛhastha life, they are also considered like gṛhastha-brahmacārīs or as good as a sannyāsī. Of course, it’s difficult, but in Kṛṣṇa’s eyes someone who is fully engaging in devotional service in whatever āśrama they are, then He recognizes. Lord Caitanya would accept, whether someone is renounced, or whether they are gṛhastha, depending on how they are engaging in devotional service. What He didn’t like when somebody was in the renounced order and then he was associating intimately with women. Because that is hypocritical. You are getting social respect, you are taking vows to be act as renounced, that gives you the freedom, you don’t have to get married, you don’t have to do all these things. But at the same time, you renounce your family, or you renounce and then take, then again you are mixing with some other women, this is very bad. You reject that person.

Similarly, in those days of course people were more responsible. If they are a gṛhastha, there wasn’t things like wife swapping, and divorce and things. Like people were taking it as a religious duty. They would get married. And they were very expert in finding a proper compatible match also, and both parties were trained. And this was what gṛhastha life entailed, what was the duty of the different people. And so generally they would follow. If the husband wanted to leave and take sannyāsa, that could only be under the… there had to be some reason for that. Not just whimsically that there is someone to do that. And so they would follow the gṛhastha life, and Lord Caitanya, he gave mercy to his gṛhastha disciples. Sometimes named their babies, some give them instruction to have children and different things. But they would engage in their devotional service from the gṛhastha-āśrama. In society there are very few people taking renounced order, and the usually people go through gṛhastha, and at the end that some people might take renounced order. Very few people take it at an early age. It’s a very rare circumstance. Even Rāmānuja was a gṛhastha before he took renounced life, but his wife didn’t cooperate. So, he gave her an ultimatum, two strikes and then you are out.  In America it’s 3 strikes and you’re out, but he told two strikes and you’ll be out. But anyway. So, his history is also, gives us a lot of instructions, thank you very much,

Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare
Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare

Someone says… well, they think that, “If I am a gṛhastha, if I am responsible for my wife, and I got children, and I got to pay the rent, I got to pay the mortgage whatever I have to pay, I have to do all the, maintain the children…”, all these parts the person doesn’t like. The sex part of it he likes, but all the rest of it he doesn’t like. That’s what you are asking about? Yeah, well that’s why being a gṛhastha is considered responsible. Because there is a difference between being a dog or a cat. And even a dog or a cat, they feel something at least. A bird brings food back for the babies. Someone wants to be like less than a worm or something, you know just enjoy and then forget about it without any higher purpose. So that’s uncivilized. That’s maybe less than an animal, or like some very low animal, some kind of fish or something, they only procreate and then swim off. Even the fish seem to kind of swims in schools, to protect their little minnows. Its natural, who is gonna like all those things? But that’s a part of life. If you gonna create progeny, then you have to also be responsible. I think that in America, in many states, if not all the states, for a parent to be totally irresponsible and neglect their children and their family is a criminal offense. You want to enjoy then but you don’t want to take responsibility. That’s why most people purchase contraceptives. But then that’s created other social, problems. Massive venereal disease problem. People become so addictive, so attached to sense gratification, then homosexuality becomes another by-product. But spiritually of course, such a situation is totally detrimental. What to speak of spiritually? Even you know materially this is a social problem. It’s a very uncivilized way of acting. So it creates a harmed civilization. So what happens is that such people, in their future birth, they may be born in some kind of appropriate species of life where they can just have sex life like that. They don’t have to worry as a monkey or pigeon, you know whatever the appropriate species is where you know they can have sex life and they don’t have to be responsible; they can fly off somewhere. But human being is meant to be responsible, because he has to take the reactions for the karmas. So if we want to enjoy, we have to also take the responsibility for that. If we try to short cut it or short-change Kṛṣṇa or the law of karma, in the end we get short changed. So the question, its natural. Who wants to take the responsibility? But that’s part of life. You see what are the responsibilities, they see where the happiness is there. We try to develop a higher taste because the highest happiness in material life is basically sex life.

Prabhupāda explains that you are eating in one restaurant, and you know you may be attached to eating in that restaurant, but then a friend takes you to another restaurant. Says, “Look, this restaurant has got better food.” Then you don’t, it’s not a question. You don’t go to the old restaurant anymore because you found a better restaurant. Just renouncing was authorized in previous ages for the sake of doing some kind of impersonal meditation on something, but its forbidden in this age because nobody has the will power to just renounce. In this age, this type of renunciation is forbidden. One has to develop a higher taste. When the person actually experiences more happiness in the Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, and therefore they are not attracted anymore, they don’t consider the happiness in sex life to be comparable with the happiness of spiritual life. Then it’s automatic that their renunciation is complete. Of course, you have to remain. In other words, you can’t starve a person. If he got a better restaurant he goes there, but if he is starving, then he will take anything that comes along. So when a person becomes lax in their spiritual life, and if you don’t maintain that taste for Kṛṣṇa consciousness because of offenses, because of the different neglect of their spiritual practices, then they put themselves in the vulnerable position, in a hungry kind of position where they are going to gain material sense gratification. We have to be happy. Nobody can live without being happy. And if it’s not spiritual happiness, it’s going to be material happiness. If it’s not material happiness, then it has to be spiritual happiness. There is no alternative. We can’t remain like in some kind of unhappy state and be stable. Because it’s our nature to be happy. So that’s why a person needs to develop that higher taste. Prabhupāda said, if you are full, that if you are full and happy, you are satisfied, then you’re in control. And if you are not satisfied, then you are in difficulty. Of course, great yogīs, they have you know practicing, and they have a great desire to achieve this spiritual realization while they were still practicing. Before they were completely full, that sometimes the demigods get worried that these great rṣīs who have got so much power, that they might create some kind of an imbalance in our universal power structure. They would sometimes send you know beautiful heavenly damsels to distract the yogīs from their spiritual practices as a decoy, and they would sometimes succumb to these allurements and that would delay their whole progress.

The same kind of a situation, not exactly the same, but a similar situation happened where people tried to send beautiful women to Haridāsa Ṭhākura to distract him, but because he was already full in Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, so he was unattracted. Rather the girl that was sent became a devotee. When they came to catch Haridāsa Ṭhākura having illicit sex, instead they found Haridāsa Ṭhākura was gone and the beautiful girl they had sent there was shaved up and wearing white cloth and was sitting there and chanting japa (laughter). They had a heart attack. Couldn’t believe. “What happened to you?” you know.

She said, “Now I have become a devotee.” (laughter)

So that’s not possible. For a certain period of time someone out of will power can maintain, but unless you develop the higher taste and you really feel peaceful in your devotional service, then it’s difficult to just renounce like this. That’s not recommended. When a person, even if they are very advanced in spiritual life, but if they become in a very intimate contact with woman, because even science now says that there is like certain hormones that are produced by the bodies of men and women, and when you get in close proximity, those hormones create secretions in the body and create certain things to happen. It’s like it’s not even just a purely mental thing. It’s like nature has made it to keep the world populated, has all these inborn mechanisms going on. Therefore, normally women is not supposed to come even within 1 meter, even within you know even 3 feet of a man, or of a sannyāsī. The women sometimes in America, they complain, “Why is it women have to stand separately. Why can’t we all dance together and everything?” But how is it possible for man to maintain his brahmacarya or his sannyāsa, or even for a married, if they are intimately connected like that. Then automatically the hormones are going to start to churn around and people are going to be feeling different kind of stimulations. Not even that it is just something psychological. It’s physiological. So for spiritual life therefore people would stay little bit separate. Don’t get all hormones unnecessarily agitated when you try to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. So this is very hard for something for people here in America to understand, because nobody is even thinking about anything like that, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa or being God conscious or self- realized. You know it’s like a socially, completely different, diametrically opposed from the normal way things are happening in America, or in the West, so they don’t understand it.

When you have a long… near our temple, then… like in Māyāpur we have a very wide temple, its 80 feet wide, so the mātājīs stand on right side and men stand in left side. But in the temple where we have long and thin, so then you know, there is not like that much room. So then sometimes they stay in the back and they complain, “Why we have to stand in the back, why can’t we be in the front?” It’s just a question of the way the temple is laid out. If you have a wide enough temple, stand at the side, there is no problem, but just the point that there should be a separation. This is the Vedic recommendation in the temples. In the household, you live together, you know. When you are married together, in the family people are together. But it says in the Vedas also that a man shouldn’t sit even alone in some place, right next to his mother or his daughter. Because it’s a female and a male body, you are naturally gonna start to produce stimulation, and it’s not good to sit in some solitary place alone. Along with other people there are some social restrain maybe, but these things are gonna start to happen. So the Vedic society is geared to helping people to control themselves for focusing their energy and self-realization, and it also has a facility for enjoying and that’s done in a particular way. That’s done, you know maybe this way is done in a earthly planet is one way, if you go on a higher planetary system… actually Kardama Muni is not a resident of earth. He might have visited here when he had done some tapasyā here, but he is actually, he is travelling in a higher planetary system when these things happened. They have a whole different set up. That’s why people in Quran and the Bible, they like to go to heaven. Since, heaven and kingdom of God is two different things. The heaven is where you really going to enjoy life, and the kingdom of God is where you serve God purely. They don’t know the difference in Christianity. I don’t think they know the difference in the Quran. But in the Vedas, they give the distinction that there is the heavenly planets and then there is the spiritual world. So you want to enjoy materially, you have to undertake the responsibility you know. You want to live in America, you got to pay your taxes. You want to make a million dollars, you got to also pay your time. Otherwise, it’s like that lady who was a big hotel owner in New York, she is a big millionaire. But she wasn’t paying any taxes and she told people, only stupid people pay taxes, and only poor people pay taxes. And then you know, well IRS heard about it and then took her to court, and then they found you know, she got big heavy sentence. So that’s the nature of material world. You can enjoy but you are responsible, So that’s frustrating people that I don’t want to be responsible. But what’s the choice? You don’t want to be responsible for these bad parts of life, then you become God conscious and develop a higher taste, and then you become free from this. This is the only way. You try to avoid it by any another way, you just get more entangled. Then a person becomes end up being responsible, that’s like in a mode of passion. You either got to go up to the mode of goodness or pure goodness and become more renounced, become more spiritual and then you transcend this type of responsibility. But if you try to just avoid it, you become in some mode of ignorance, and then you become more entangled, you become like some kind of an alcoholic who just wanders around, and becomes… and he becomes more degraded, and he goes down and down. So the laws of karma are like that. Either you can stay the same and be in the mode of passion, or you can go up spiritually to a mode of goodness and even get elevated. Or like Kardama Muni, some people they do tapasyā to have a higher enjoyment later. They can say while this enjoyment is nothing but, may be the higher planets. But if you completely become irresponsible, you become in a mode of ignorance. Tamas and you become degraded, go back to the animalism, no free rights, unfortunate, you know the positive alternate is Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. There is no kind of negative aspect to spiritual happiness. There is no entanglement. But devotees are very responsible. They can understand that they are doing it out of love for Kṛṣṇa. So even there, here you have to do it materially, maybe person doesn’t want to do, but he just has to do it, so it’s like a headache. But because a devotee is doing this service for Kṛṣṇa, out of love of Kṛṣṇa, so there even the work is happy. One likes to do the service. Someone’s actually a fixed-up devotee, they are very happy in their devotional service. I gave this experience of South America. I told this story a few times, like devotees you know, you have to tell them it’s the time for prasādam! Generally, they like to do their service. But I was in this one printing factory. They were printing some of our books and I was being taken in there by the temple president, by the BBT manager. It was late at night like 8’o clock. I was like in the last shift. 8.30 or 9 I forget the time where they talk to the manager, look into things. All the people are working, printing you know. It was really active you know, the whole factory. You know printing, and people doing the layout, people are on their printing machines, people cutting the paper, people binding, it was like a pretty medium size kind of printing press, maybe 50 persons or 25 persons. All of a sudden, I was just by the door. There’s like the door, the punch card, and I was at the little table. They are looking at the layout of some of our first colors, prints that came out. *ring* The bell rang, it was 8.30 and all of a sudden within seconds *sound effect* every press was shut down. It was like people, you know just like *ring* as soon as that bell rang, just within just a few seconds there was complete, there wasn’t a press running, no light, everything was *boom* off. And the people were like-running, grabbing their coat, running, pushing and shouting. *boom* Punching out the punch card and *boom* running out of the door. I was getting knocked over.

Devotee: Woahhh! (laughter)

Completely. I thought there was like a fire drill. I never saw anywhere. People where running out of the place, literally. I mean I was just like if you had heard a fire alarm or something like that, you know. They’re out. Within 15 seconds the place was *boom* empty. And I looked out of the door and saw people *bus passing by* running off, you know. It was the last bus or what. But they were gone, you know. (laughter) And I just got the impression… talk about attachment to your work! (laughter) You know here the devotees; Lord Caitanya’s pastimes, see how in Guñdīca they are like fighting, who can serve Kṛṣṇa, who can carry more water, and clean and so enthusiastic. Here the people like fighting to get out of there. Raaaah! Can’t wait to get out you know. Time is up, let’s get out of here. Phew! (laughter) So they just want to get the money and get out of here. They’re not like enjoying what they are doing. Like work a few more minutes or something. But the devotees actually, they enjoy what they are doing because the work is connected to Kṛṣṇa, so even the service itself is a form of reciprocating with Kṛṣṇa, and devotees enjoy that.

That definitely sounds like Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā, 16^th chapter I believe, the divine and demonic natures. The demoniac can do all kind of horrible works to achieve their ends. When you don’t believe that there is a God, that there is a natural order to things, if you just think that everything is accidental, so that philosophy aligns itself to people thinking, ‘Oh well, it’s all accidental so we can just kind of make things to happen a little faster. We can start to do things.’ So basically because society is more… the whole structure of science, and the whole structure of the government policy, apart from fact that the money says ‘IN GOD WE TRUST’, that the philosophy is basically Godless. Every day we read in paper people get Nobel prize because they have come up with the theory about the big bang, or about things coming from the primordial soup. We go to EPCOT center and Disney, and they again and again give this philosophy on how everything comes simply from the materialistic evolution. There is no higher intelligence, there is no higher order, there is no higher reality. Because of that, then people they think they can do anything. What they are going to create? Your guess is good. What happens from doing these things? Certainly, doing these things, in the long run is going to produce a lot of complications. The more we mess around with nature, just like now we are facing with ecological imbalances. That we may end up with all kind of biological imbalances. All kind of weird species of people who are you know going around and spreading rabies. Who knows what’s going to happen? Anybody’s guess! Because we are messing around with things that we shouldn’t be messing around with. But the reason they can logically do it and then feel that it’s alright, it comes from evolution and there is no higher reality or God, and in this way they get away with anything they want. And what they were doing is that we as a human race bring imbalances. Just like it came in the paper yesterday that there is so much carcinogenic emissions coming from the paper factories in Georgia alone, that it’s like something like 25 times more than the danger level. But people don’t know that. They just breathe in the air, that inside there’s this kind of… people are getting cancer because of all these big factories producing so many things. Now the government is trying to control it. Just like all add to the fact that after we-, a whole way of life in America or the whole philosophy of life needs to be, needs to be brought, to be improved, to be spiritualized. People need to be more to understand what is the reality. Unfortunately, science is never going to be able to give all the answers because this whole premise is very limited. So, this is why it’s our duty is to spread Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. We have a scientific wing and they are also trying to use science as far as possible to prove different Kṛṣṇa Conscious—I don’t know what you call it, premises? Principle? Truth?—so that we can have a society that’s not Godless. This type of Godless society is going to go on producing so many difficulties. It’s because the basically society is going on in a godless way and a demoniac way, and your guess is as good as mine. What’s going to be produced by all these crazy things that people do, all because people think they are as good as God and that there is no higher truth. If we know that there is a God, we know there is a Supreme Truth, if we follow, then we will be responsible to not only human beings but also the animals. What right do we have? We don’t have right to take the embryos out of the womb. But because they say that life only begins after 6 weeks. But according to Vedas, life begins at conception. And only the Catholics, and the Buddhists, and the Vedas agree. But of course the Buddhists don’t practice what they preach anymore. Very few do. Neither anybody in the world practice what their philosophy is. But actual philosophy in Vedas, even that was given by Buddha as well. Must be in Bible as the Catholics believe that life begins at conception. Life doesn’t actually begin; life is already there. According to the Vedas, when the soul enters into the womb and begins the life cycle of that particular organism. Not that it begins at the time of 6 weeks, when the consciousness is a little more developed. Life is there even before the consciousness is developed enough to express itself. But they got it all worked out, and so it gives them the 6 weeks period they can start to take embryos and play around with it. So knowledge is the best remedy for ignorance, and although they are very learned in certain aspects of science, but in the overall picture they are considered to be māyāpahṛta-jñāna. Learned people whose intelligence has been stolen by illusion, as mentioned in the Bhagavad-gītā.

Hare Kṛṣṇa!