19820504 Bhagavad-gītā 3.5

(Disclaimer: The following is a machine-generated transcript and may contain errors or inaccuracies. It will be reviewed and verified against the original audio soon.)

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on May 4, 1982 – in Boston, USA. The lecture begins with a reading from Bhagavad-gītā 3.5.

6 and 7 first text 5 nahi kaschit kapi jatu Tishtat Yakar Magrit Karyate Jayar Gunai all men are forced to act helplessly according to the impulses born of the modes of material nature. Therefore no one can refrain from doing something, not even for a moment. Translation of Repetition, please. All men are forced all men are forced to act helplessly according to the impulses according to the impulses born of the modes of material nature. Born of the modes of material nature. Therefore no one can refrain from doing something not even for a moment. Not even for a moment. Support by RLA Prabhupda it is not a question of embodied life, but it is the nature of the soul to be always active. Without the presence of the spirit soul, the material body cannot move.

The body is only a dead vehicle to be worked by the spirit soul, which is always active and cannot stop even for a moment. As such, the spirit soul has to be engaged in the good work of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Otherwise it will be engaged in occupations dictated by illusory energy. In contact with material energy, the spirit soul acquires material modes, and to purify the soul from such affinities, it is necessary to engage in the prescribed duties enjoined in the shastras. But if the soul is engaged in his natural function of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, whatever he is able to do is good for him. The Śrīmad Bhāgavatam confirms this. If someone takes to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, even though he may not know, he may not follow the prescribed duties in the shastras, nor execute the devotional service properly.

And even though he may fall down from the standard, there is no loss or evil for him. But if he carries out all the injunctions for purification in the shastras, what does it avail him if he is not Kṛṣṇa conscious? Bhāgavatam that was a verse from the Bhāgavatam 1st canto 5th, chapter 17, verse. So the purificatory process is necessary for reaching this point of Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Therefore, sannyas, or any purificatory process is to help reach the ultimate goal of becoming Kṛṣṇa conscious, without which everything is considered a failure. Here all men are forced to act helplessly according to the impulses born on the modes of nature. Therefore no one can refrain from doing something, not even for a moment. There are two parts of this verse.

The first part is that we are forced to act because this is our spiritual nature to be always active. It is our spiritual nature to be active. Therefore in all circumstances we act the Second part is that when we are not in our original Kṛṣṇa consciousness, our original spiritual consciousness, we are forced to act according to the dictation of material modes of nature, goodness, passion or ignorance. And if we are in our Kṛṣṇa conscious state, then we are not forced to act by the modes. Then we are actually in a liberated state. So every religious function, every purificatory process is meant to bring us to that ultimate goal of becoming completely Kṛṣṇa conscious. In the embodied life we have experience that as soon as the spirit leaves the body is called dead. It no longer functions.

So therefore we should understand what is the difference between this body and the soul. This body is conscious because of the presence of life symptoms, which is because of the presence of light. We are that life, that living spark, the living essence that is our actual identity. What is known as death is when we leave this body and lose the connection with the body, then the body no longer functions. The body is like a machine. In your automobile you have wires that go to the headlights. If you cut the wires, your headlights will not even you pull the plug. You pull, you know, you push the button for the lights to go on, button or plug, whatever you call it, then it won’t go.

Similarly, if you take a tourniquet and wrap it around your arm, cut off the blood circulation after a short time, you won’t feel any sense in your hand. The living essence is in the heart and from the heart the consciousness is carried. From the heart, the consciousness is carried throughout the body through the bloodstream. You cut off the blood, that part of the body is no longer conscious. So we are now receiving happiness and pain from our bodies. But the observer of that happiness and that pain is the spirit, soul, the spirit essence, the living essence. When that living essence leaves the body is dead. So the great soul say that the happiness we’re able to perceive through the body is limited because the body is limited.

And when we actually develop our spiritual senses, when we are able to realize happiness which is not filtered through the body, that happiness is unlimited. So people who don’t know how to act on the spiritual platform, they are forced to act on the material platform. If one I remember here in Canada, Śrīla Prabhupāda gave an example that if there is some money lying on the street, if there is money lying on the street, then depending how a person reacts with that money would dictate what mode of nature he is in. If a person sees the money in the street and he thinks it well, what will I do with this Money and just leaves it and walks off. That means he’s in the mode of ignorance. Another man, he walks up, he sees the money and thinks, oh, there’s $10.

Immediately picks it up, puts it in his pocket and walks off. He’s in the mode of passion. He’s thinking how to get the profit. Then a person comes to his imani, oh, whose money is this? Someone has lost their money, picks it up and looks around. Is this your? Whose money is this? You see, that’s in a mode of goodness to try to find out who is the rightful owner. He’s not particularly interested himself. So in every action, in every situation, a person is going to act according to the modes that he is associated with. Normally, in the present society, people act in a mode of ignorance or passion. And to some extent, some people act in the mode of goodness. So Kṛṣṇa consciousness is, of course, beyond these three modes.

It is the transcendental mode that is known as sudha satva, or pure goodness. Ordinarily, a person can get out of the modes of nature that he is in. Just like if you put a dog on a king’s throne, dress him up as a big king and everything, but when you throw a bone, he will run off the throne and go running after the bone. They have a story in Bengal that if you take a dog’s tail and try to straighten it out, there’s a certain kind of dog has a curly tail. If you try to straighten it out, no matter how you iron it or you stretch it, you put it in a cast. As soon as you take it out, it comes back. There’s another story about a camel that wanted to. That came up.

I believe it was the camel came up to a river and there was a scorpion who wanted to get across the river. You know, scorpion, they’re very poisonous. Actually, india, there’s scorpions. I found a scorpion in my. In my room. Not in the room I live in now, but I was living in another room right under my bed on the roof there. I found. Also on the roof, but I found under my feet. You find them crawling up the stairway. Sometimes they live in tropical countries. So there was this scorpion, and he wanted to get across the river. So he asked the camel if you would please take me across the river on your back. And the camel said, why will I take you across the river? My back, you will sting me. He said, if I sting you, what will I gain?

When you’re in the middle of the river, if I sting you and you drown, I will also die. So then he thought, yes, that makes sense. So then he took the scorpion on his back and he crossed the river. When he got in the middle of the river, the scorpion stung him. He said, why did you do that? You know that you will also die by doing this? By killing me? He said, yes, but it’s my nature. I can’t help. So they both perished. Everyone is working under a certain nature. And ordinarily it’s very difficult to change that nature. Some of our devotees are coming from Chicago, and I met them, and they’re from a very rough neighborhood in Chicago by the railway tracks. And many gangs and many rough people fighting this community and that community.

So they became devotees, and they have big responsibilities and they’re going all over the world preaching. But then when they go back home to see their parents, they see that even after 15 years, the same people, they’re doing the same thing. Say, even though they’re now maybe 40 years old. And then when they were there, they were 18, they’re doing the same thing, the same fighting, the same drinking, the same nonsense. They couldn’t get out of their conditioning. This Kṛṣṇa consciousness is designed to bring one above conditioning. When Nārada Muni was asked that what is the definition of devotional service, he gave in the Nārada Panchatrik, which was written over 5000 years ago. Sarbupadi venir mukta tatparattena Nirmala means all. Upadhi means designation. Mukta means liberated. Liberated or free from all designations, all artificial designations.

In this world, we have so many designations that I am a Canadian, I am an American, I am a Latino, I am an Indian, I am a Russian, I am an Argentina, I am a British. And then we fight to the death, or we do whatever on that basis. Or we’re thinking, I am a man, I am a woman, I am young, I am old, I am skinny, I am fat, I am light, I dire, whatever. We make so many designations which are all based upon simply body consciousness. So just if you want to fix your machine, take it outside this consciousness that I am this designation, I am that designation. This is transcended. When one achieves Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then one is conscious. I am the eternal spirit, soul. I am the living force in the body. That this body is a machine. A man may buy a Mercedes, but he doesn’t think, I am a Mercedes.

He sells the Mercedes and buys a Porsche. He doesn’t think, no, I am a Porsche, he knows that he’s himself. And he may drive a different vehicle depending on so many different situations. Nowadays people even identify themselves very much with the car they drive. But Kṛṣṇa consciousness goes beyond that. Who is the driver? Who is the passenger in that car? The passenger is more important than the car. Once the driver, the passenger leave the car cannot move. The owner of the car is more important than the car. When there’s a car accident, who do you try to save? The owner of the car or the car? When the car runs off the road, do they first go and try to save the car wheels or the engine? Or they try to save the owner of the car who’s inside it? But why?

Why is it that in this life we’re so worried about saving the car, this body which is the vehicle but we’re not concerned about saving the owner of the vehicle? This is our illusion. This is the illusion of this material world that we identify with this body and with all these things that are connected to the body. Nārada Muni is saying Sarbabhadi Vinya Muktan tat Paragna Nirimalam that the heart becomes completely purified. One becomes free from all these designations. Then one automatically achieves the natural blissful state. So how do we achieve? Instead of serving these impulses based upon goodness, passion or ignorance, these different modes, we train ourselves to work, to engage the senses in the service of Kṛṣṇa. Rishikena, Rishikesha Sevanam. To serve the master of the senses, the Supreme Lord.

We subdue other impulses, we regulate them so that we do not lose. That we can do everything in the service of Kṛṣṇa of Rishikesh. When the senses are engaged in serving the master of the senses, the Supreme Lord, that doesn’t mean the senses are deprived, but they’re regulated. We eat spiritual food, we have spiritual families, we have regulated sleep and so on. In this way we achieve bhakti or the transcendental platform. So these are very important things to understand today in the world. There’s so much difficulty, there’s so much strife because people are not understanding this basic difference between the body and the soul. Even a simple farmer india, he knows that he had previous lives. He knows after this life he has another life.

If suddenly something happens, just like nearby in a village, there were three babies sleeping on a bed inside a inside of a mosquito net in the house, so many relatives were there. Outside, there were so many relatives sleeping. Mother, father, brother, sister and three small children were sleeping in the bed in the middle of the night, a cobra crawled over all the people sleeping through the house. Crawled up into the bed through the mosquito net and bit the small child in the middle instantly. Within five minutes it was dead and it crawled away. Why that particular child is killed? So everyone in the house knows that this was the karma of that child. This was the reaction. When one’s time is there to go, one has to go. When one’s period of living is finished by whatever means a person is going to die.

Due to the previous activities in the previous life. It was ordained that this person had to die early. So we have each of us some time to live in this world. We don’t know what length at it may be 20 years, it may be 30 years, it may be 40 years, it may be 50, 60, 70, 80. We don’t know how many years. So we should take it that whatever time we have, we should use that to get out of this cycle of bondage. To get out of this material consciousness. Otherwise, again we have to come back just like Ravi Shankar. Śrīla Prabhupāda said that Ravi Shankar was a great sitar player. That this is his ninth birth as a sitar player. Therefore he’s become better and better with each birth.

So like that, we may be an artist or a scientist or a writer or something. And we’re thinking our whole life how I can get better at my profession next. Again we take birth in such a family. We have these tendencies to go to school. Again we become a writer. Again we become an artist or a guitar player or a criminal or whatever. So the point is that to get out of this repetition and to actually achieve our original consciousness. The original consciousness is Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. That original consciousness is easily achieved by simply chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare, Hare Ram, Hare Ram. All this conditioning is just like dirt on the consciousness, dust on the mirror. If we just like here, there’s some stain on the mirror.

So if we take a piece of cloth and we start to rub it, then it becomes clear. In the same way our consciousness, it becomes covered with dust. So we cleanse that by chanting. Everyone that goes out in the street, they get. Gradually their cloth gets dirty. There’s so many fumes come. Their shirts get dirty, the pants get dirty. So then we take the clothes and we wash them. We don’t wear the same clothes. Every day after day after day we wash the clothes. But when we going out in the street, our consciousness is becoming contaminated by ignorance, by passion, by goodness, by so many different. Of course, goodness is better. But we’re still getting so many contamination. So many dust are coming on our consciousness, but we’re not cleansing.

Therefore, as people grow older, they become more and more rigid sometimes in their outlooks. They say that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks in the West. Or as they say india, you can bend a green bamboo, but you cannot bend a paka ban, a ripe bamboo, It will snap for the green bamboo. You can bend it. Why? Because they’re not cleansing the consciousness. As they’re going on gradually it’s kicking up. They’re getting so much contamination in their consciousness, so much conditioning. I am a Canadian, I am American. I am this. I like this. I don’t like that. I like this. I don’t like that. I like this. I don’t like that. I like this. I don’t like that. In this way, they gradually fix up so many opinions based upon what they like and what they don’t like.

What they think is good, what they think is not good. But Caitanya Mahāprabhu said, e balo e mando sabmunya Brahma. This is good, that is bad. This is all our mental compaction. What is really good, what is really bad? That we can only understand from the absolute point of view. Argentina say that it is very good if the Maldinas is our property. But the British are saying it is very good if the Falklands are our property. And this way both think they’re right. And so they’re having a war, an armed battles. So this is good, that is bad on the material platform, how we will have a unity in the world unless we see from the viewpoint of God what is his viewpoint on it.

Well, God’s viewpoint is that the Maldives or the Falklands, they don’t belong to England, nor do they belong to Argentina. They belong to him. He created the world, he’s maintaining it. And when he wants to destroy the whole thing, and you can say indirectly that the nature is the owner. But every nation thinks that this property is our national resource. We can exploit it, we can take it, and we can use it for our people. And if one nation doesn’t have as many resources, tough, let them starve. Why? Because everyone is thinking this is mine properly. But if everyone sees that it’s all God’s property, then the whole world can have harmony. Kṛṣṇa says everyone has a right to their quota.

What they need to keep their body and soul together, to be healthy, to eat properly have a shelter, so on, they get a quota. But beyond that quota, they shouldn’t hoard, they shouldn’t maintain. That’s why in the world you have north and south, you have affluent nations and underdeveloped nations that do not see eye to eye with each other. Because. Because there’s the have and they have not. Those who have, they’re not going to sacrifice more than a token for those that don’t have and those that don’t have because they haven’t been trained in spiritual consciousness, they’re thinking, how I can steal, beg, borrow, whatever from those that have in this way. In the world there’s a constant turmoil going on. Fights between capitalism, communism. So the solution to the world’s problems is actually lying in God consciousness.

If one is God conscious, then he is satisfied with what he needs and the rest can be used in the service of God to help others. But without that God consciousness, everyone will be holding on to what they have and desiring what they don’t have. So Caitanya Mahbu came to deliver God consciousness into the world. Kṛṣṇa consciousness is a sublime method of developing our Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Caitanya Mahabhu used to go door to tell his followers to go door to door and beg everyone to take up the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa, studying the Bhagavad Gītā and the teachings of Kṛṣṇa, and to worship Kṛṣṇa in their own house, in their own life. And this way.

(Side B of the Cassette)

Great preachers Lord Dichidanda and Haridas, Taku Dichiranda and Haridas. How come there’s no picture of what you can. Some prejudice. This is Lloyd Dittananda wearing the blue doty type of sarong. He used to wear blue, very colorful. So he was going door to door with Haridas, requesting people to take up the chanting, knocking on the door. Anyone home? When they can’t see the door, they would say, offer their respects and beg the person, please. On the order of Caitanya Mahāprabhu, we are begging you to take up the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa. Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare Ram, Hare Ram, Ram, Hare. Please chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, study the teachings of Kṛṣṇa and worship Kṛṣṇa in your life. So in this way they’re going. And people were gradually, more and more were taking up the chanting.

Then there are these two brothers who are great criminals, Jagai Madhai. These two brothers, they are always drunk, always intoxicated, sometimes taking opium and other things. And they’re always intoxicated, fighting. They were the organized criminals of that day, 500 years ago. They had their underground and they had their protection service and everything. So even the government was afraid of them. They were so organized, they would make the people that took the people across the river pay them something. Otherwise they’d sink their boats. They would took over some of the bathing ghats and kick all the ladies and widows off. And to say, from this day forward, this is our God. We will bathe here and no one else. Sometimes they would rape young girls. Sometimes they do so many things. And so Nithyananda, though he was ordered that he should ask everyone to chant.

So when he saw them, he thought, well, I should ask them to chant also. He was thinking, looking at them. And then immediately one of the local villagers came and said, don’t do it. These people are hopeless cases. If you do it, they will simply attack you or something. He went anyway. And that time they were just there, drunken, having some intoxicated, having some singing some songs or something there. And then Swamithinanda went up and said that, my dear brothers, please take up the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa. Lead a holy life, study the teachings of Kṛṣṇa. This is my humble request. So of course they were so angry to hear that they ran after Nithyananda and Haridas trying to beat them. They took the better part of valor was discretion. So they ran rather than continue discussion.

And the two brothers, Jagannadaya, were chasing Lord Nithyananda and Harida as Thakur, who somehow another escaped and then reported to Lord Chaitanya. He told them, don’t make unnecessary risk. But subsequently, after a few months, so many things happened. And then anyway, Nithyananda Prabhupāda when he met the brothers again, this time they were having a brawl on the street, fighting with some people. And in the lull in the fight, Lord Nityānanda came over and he thought that I have to give these people the mercy of Lord Caitanya. Again. He requested that you please take up this chanting. So one of them was on the ground. He was practically intoxicated, out of his mind. He said, did you hear this? So you want to. You want to give us love for God. So here, you take this.

And he took his wine bottle and smashed it on Nithyananda. Blood was pouring down. Nityānanda said, just because you beat me over the head, does that mean that I won’t give you love for Kṛṣṇa? Chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. And then seeing the power of Nityana didn’t even matter. He was hit over the head. Would have killed an ordinary man. He was standing there still saying, take the love for Kṛṣṇa. His brother said, this is no ordinary cat. This is no ordinary person. And he says, just stop it. Just take it easy. And then in the meantime, Lord Caitanya, heard what happened. He came calling the Sudarshan Chakra. He was ready to immediately kill these two brothers with his own personal weapons. When Nithyananda said, no, if you kill these, you will have to kill everyone, so you shouldn’t kill these in the meantime.

They saw that they were overwhelmed by the mercy of Lord Nityānanda and the whole situation. Somehow they had a change of heart. They fell down and said that you are not an ordinary person, that we will surrender unto you. So Lord Caitamiya said, well, I will spare you if you promise not to commit any of these activities anymore. You have to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Lead a simple life. Work for the welfare of others instead of the destruction of others. So they agreed. They went to the Ganges, took a purifying bath. They were initiated by the Lord. And after that day they became great devotees of Hare Kṛṣṇa. Chanting so people came from far and wide to see them. They go dancing down to the river with their shaved heads, chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. And people couldn’t believe it. They would come and give offerings.

It was like, I don’t know who the big criminals in Canada are, but in America, something like Babyface Nelson and Al Capone. They were to have become Hare Kṛṣṇa preachers. I don’t know who are the big criminals in Canada. I guess their famous here too. So the thing was one day, Mada. He was always feeling that I hit Nityānanda over the head. As he came to his senses, when he started to advance, he finally realized I am not the body. He got free from that association of Tama and Rajaguna. By the blessing of Lord Nityānanda, he could realize, I am not this body. So why am I working simply on the bodily platform? Once you realize you’re not the body, everything changes. When you think you’re the body, then you can’t help but acting according to the society. Friendship, conditioning, upbringing.

As soon as you realize you’re not the body, then everything changes. One second. If you can just try to understand who am I? Am I this body? Am I this hand? Am I this head? Am I the mind? When am I? When you can understand I am not this body. I am the living principle which is beyond the body. Then immediately everything changes. I am the servant of Kṛṣṇa. I am the part of God. And this body is simply a machine. Then why should we work the whole life just to take care of this machine? Just to get a little better bed, Just a little better sensation. When we’re actually missing the real us, the real self. So Maday had a whole change of heart, whole realization.

But then he realized that in his ignorance he had struck Nityānanda who was such a magnanimous saint, such a magnanimous personality of mercy himself. So he approached Lord Nityānanda and he begged that you, please you forgive me for my offenses to you. And Lord Nityānanda said that there’s no question offense. Lord Nityānanda is actually incarnation of God. Come just to show how to love God. He says. Just like if a little baby hits the mother or father, mother and father. They don’t think that oh, the baby is hitting me. That they take it as not very significant. Not an offense. You’re just like my child. Whatever you do, I won’t take any offense. So then Madhai said, well, but I did so many things that were so harmful to so many other living entities. Human beings, animals, you name it.

I did unlimited envious activities, violent activities for my own personal Sanskrit. How will they ever forgive me? How will I be absolved from all those offenses? So then Lord Nityānanda gave him a special project that you go to the sacred Ganges and you dig and you make one bathing God. So all the people can go there and bathe. When they bathe in the Ganges, they become purified from reactions from their previous activities. In this way, they will be very grateful for you, to you and you will be absolved from the offenses that you have done to so many living entities. So then Mahday personally went and with his Shambhala, he organized some of his old people and he personally took up the thing himself. And he dug and built a beautiful bathing ghat known as Madhai Ghat. Ghat means the stairway.

They don’t have an exact. There’s no such thing as that. It’s like a pier. They don’t have God in the West. They don’t have any. How would you translate God? God means it’s like. It’s a beautiful stairway that goes down into the water so that people, when they go into a lake or river, they don’t have to just, you know, slip on the mud or step on the stones. There’s a beautiful stairway with different. It’s like a stairway. Stelling. Stelling in Diana. Yeah, they made wood steps like dung. The brick steps. Yeah. So these are brick and stone. So he made one of these and it was named after him. That’s called a ghat. It’s like a dock or something. But it’s just for people taking their bath. So everyone went there and he started bathing.

And this way they were all praising Wadhain for this public contribution and he was absolved. So we perform so many activities and these activities, they tie us into a chain and effect, cause and effect in the material world. So once we realize our spiritual nature, we want to get free from the material reactions that we become implicated in. Then the best way is by doing welfare work for other people. But if we do material welfare work, that is another type of entanglement. Just like if you do charity to someone that may be in the mode of goodness, you’re doing charity, but you’re doing material. Charity means that under the law of cause and effect, known as the law of karma, that person becomes indebted to you. So you give a person charity. Say some poor man, you give charity.

You are guaranteed to get at least an equal amount back in the future life. But what happens? Say you give a poor man charity, how is he going to pay you back? He owes you that. In the future lives he has to repay you. You may have to become his son or daughter in a future life so that naturally the mother and father, they do so much service for their children and they don’t get anything in return, what is to speak of it? So then you give some charity out to some poor guy, and then the next life you have to become the son and daughter of that poor guy. This is the result. So doing welfare work on the material platform is another form of entanglement.

So therefore, one is recommended to do welfare work on the spiritual platform where a person is actually also helped out of that body consciousness out of the material chain of cause and effect. So that’s done just like that. Well, he built a bathing God in the side of the Ganges. Or you engage people in chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, or you engage the people in reading the books about Kṛṣṇa, or somehow you just do some service in an organization or helping the organization that is spreading Kṛṣṇa consciousness, spreading spiritual consciousness and uplifting the people spiritually. In this way, the welfare work that is being done is bringing people up from material consciousness to spiritual consciousness. Therefore, one is not materially entangled. Rather, one is free from the material entanglement. So Lord Caitanya said, Janma Shatak Kori Koropora, Utah Perfect your life and help others.

There’s a story about india, they have these open air. They have open air, they make a well, sometimes four or five feet wide. And they put. Some people of Dali, they put clay rings that goes down sometimes 20, 30ft. And then they have a little like open air, kind of just a little enclosed wc and it goes down and just piles up in that hole. So 1. It was in the newspaper that one family, a little baby fell in. And so the father became so emotional that he didn’t think what to do. He jumped in nearly, you know, he jumped in a hole like that. And he just immediately got asphyxiated and died also. Or sometimes people, they fall on a river and they start to drown and father or someone will jump in to save him. He does not assume he gets drowned.

He gets killed too. Sometimes the house is burning on fire, and then they run into the house to save the people. And because he doesn’t take a necessary precaution for the smoke, they end up becoming knocked out by the smoke and dying. So you have to first of all, take precaution yourself. You can’t just say, I am going to help people and not first bring yourself up to the spiritual platform. So Lord Caitanya said, first, perfect yourself, Jan Mashatikoi. Perfect your life. Know who you are, know who is Kṛṣṇa. Know what is the purpose of life. Get out of the laws of karma. And at the same time as you’re advancing to that stage, then you help people to advance in spiritual life, then you help others. It’s almost done simultaneously.

But that has to be under guidance, because one alone can’t do it in association with other senior people. One can help in the beginning and gradually, as one is becoming more and more liberated from material contamination, then a person can take up more responsibility in that regard without danger of becoming contaminated. So in these regards, are there any questions? The little one. Who’s the mother? The little one? Two. Both the boy and the girl. Who’s the girl? Lola Dave Mother’s life Kunti Pregunta.

Do.

You have any questions? Robert Samadhi is scheduled, I think, to be opening in the next year’s Māyā. Professor Samadhi in Vrindavan is going to opening this November. There will be a big festival in Vrindavan in November.

For many years. How does one actually overcome that? People don’t change overnight spiritual life in physical activities.

In the beginning, one is advised to do the types of services that come natural. In other words, say one’s a farmer, then he wouldn’t be asked to be the accountant if he didn’t know how to write additional. Or if a person is a musician, he wouldn’t be asked necessarily to dig ditches. They’d be given services which in the initial stages are easy for them to perform. Which are? They would dovetail the natural propensities, but know how to do those natural propensities under the guidance of spiritual master, so that they’re actually pleasing to Kṛṣṇa, they’re actually transcendental. In this way, as one purify, gets purified by performing spiritual activity, then one reaches a platform where they can do practically anything and it won’t affect their consciousness. They can do anything from menial service up to very great responsibilities.

Basically, one doesn’t have to change the nature, but whatever the nature is, one dovetails that nature in the service of Kṛṣṇa. Then it doesn’t matter as long as you don’t allow the nature to take you away from the service to Kṛṣṇa, as long as the nature itself is used in the service of Kṛṣṇa. One man, if he’s a Katria like Arjuna, then he uses his military ability to defend Kṛṣṇa devotees to establish a Kṛṣṇa conscious order. If someone is a musician, uses his music to glorify Kṛṣṇa, to educate the people in spiritual life, awaken them to a spiritual awakening, then in this way it doesn’t matter what one’s propensities may be. If one actually properly engages them, then that is accepted by Kṛṣṇa. But if the propensity takes one away from the service of Kṛṣṇa, then that’s of course very dangerous.

Well, say that someone believes that, all right, there’s a supreme personality of God here. He has that belief and he wants to serve him. So technically that’s devotional service. But yet his mentality is not pure in the mode of ignorance. He thinks that while he sees an actual behavior, he acts with a separate interest due to anger, enviousness, jealousy, with a grudge, separatist attitude, or in some illusion he’s serving. Just like, say that in ordinary life a person is angry sometimes at someone else. I am going to show him. I am going to get him. So say that somehow a person said, well, I am going to serve Kṛṣṇa, but I am going to show that I am going to show I am going to get back at that person by serving Kṛṣṇa.

Or even though he’s serving Kṛṣṇa, but still he’s harboring some kind of enmity and that’s somehow motivating him to show that I am a great devotee due to some grudge or some, you know, although some devotion is there, but it’s still covered with mode of ignorance. With Tamaguna. It’s not pure devotion then mode of passion. Someone performing some devotional service, but they want to get the recognition from other people. They want to get fame or they want to get some benefit out of it, or they think that, well, they are better than everyone else, they are a little bit proud. So they also have a separate interest than Kṛṣṇas that’s mixed with the mode of passion. Then they’re mixed with the mode of goodness. The person wants elevation to the higher planetary systems or liberation from the material world, follows the rules carefully.

But still there may be some pride that I am better than the others in another aspect. In this way, when one wants either just liberation or some other type of elevation like that’s in the mode of goodness, he also has a separate interest. It’s not actually purely to serve Kṛṣṇa, but Anya Villashita Sunyam Gyanakarva Na when one simply is serving without any motive, that’s considered to be love, man and woman. If the woman says, you have to pay me 50 bucks, then it’s not considered love, it’s just considered to be a professional. But we think that when we go to God and we pray to him, please give me $100 or $1,000 or 10,000 or 10 million, but we’re going. And practically speaking we’re going as a business deal, it’s not pure love. We’re going, and give me this, give me that.

But if we ask him that, give me devotion to you, allow me to serve you. And in this way, that’s something which is not incongruous, that’s completely in harmony. So that’s considered to be pure love. When there’s no demand for anything in return, you may give something, that’s another thing. Even then, the pure devotee doesn’t accept, even when Kṛṣṇa offers, even when it’s given, that generally they may not accept unless they can use it somehow in the service of Kṛṣṇa Prabhupāda no, we require preachers like that. We require devotees like that at that standard. That is the goal. Even if a person is not at that standard, even if they’re very far away, they should know what the perfection is and they should be working gradually to achieve it.

Śrīla Prabhupāda MOVEMENT One astrologer said india, well, this is a person just seeing his signature. This person is a person who can build a house to hold the whole world. Either we’re working towards the spiritual perfection. We may be on the bottom rung of the ladder, or we may be 10 rungs up, or we may be halfway up or whatever. But either we’re climbing up or we’re going down. Either we’re going further away from our spiritual awakening or we’re going further up towards it. So just like in South America, we have the Amigos de Kṛṣṇa. They chant one round a day, 108 times Hare Kṛṣṇa. Most of them are still eating meat. They’re not vegetarian, they’re not following. In India we have same thing, Sanskar Patra. So many people, they may not be following purely, but then they try, they work.

One man I went, he was in Peru and he was chanting two rounds first. Then gradually he gave up certain things and he started work on it after a period of two years. He was making a lot of progress and each time he would feel more peace. He would feel his wife was also advancing. And this way, now they have a little temple in their house and they have programs. They invite friends over and have programs. Some people, they may not be able to get so advanced in their whole life, but if they’re trying for it, they don’t lose anything as it mentions here. They stand to gain everything. And even if you gain the whole world, but when you die, everything is gone. When you leave the body, then you get a whole fresh start.

You can’t take away your name, fame and glory. You can’t take with your money. You can’t take anything. Question Mars.

I was just wondering that I spoke to two boys yesterday and they were barely. But they weren’t too much equality. But one boy did agree that he was a chair. I was just wondering if you don’t really have a much understanding of.

This is why What? Why whatever me what will ever will bring you to Kṛṣṇa Khan?