19820817 Bhakti-yoga

(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 on Bhakti-yoga given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on August 17, 1982.

So tonight’s discussion will be titled AbOrtion. Or like Chitanya Mahāprabhu or like Mordecha Joe. They all propose that Bhakti yoga because they can take one immediately to the top, to the state of samadhi. You see, normally we have to go through like firstly you have to do meditation. But to do, before we can do meditation, you have to learn how to sit. So your hatha yoga is all the asanas, how to sit properly. As if you’re going to meditate for hours and days and weeks. Then you have to know how to sit properly. Otherwise you be able to just sit and meditate. So then you have to do hatha yoga. Then if you want to sit, then you have to have certain amount of mental control. That means you have to know yamas, niyamas, like this. So there’s eight different stages.

Then when you finally, when you get to those preliminary states, then you come into. Then you have to control imams. That’s for that reason you need pranayama. They are gradually, you see, able to bring the mind in tune with the breathing. So then they take the ingoing breath into the outgoing breath and stop the breath. At that point the thought is stopped. Until we can go beyond the mind, we cannot see ātmā or paramātmā. So you have to stop the thought. Have you ever tried stopping thinking? You just sit for a minute now and you just try to stop thinking. Even you’re thinking. Just stop thinking. You’re thinking. If you think that now I won’t think. There is also a thought. So how to stop? So that by pranayam, mechanically a person stops.

And then we can see between the thought you can see paramātmā. That becomes dhyana. When he’s meditating with a thought, stop with dhyana. Then from dhyana comes samadhi. When he becomes fully absorbed. So they stay in samadhi. This is a very lengthy process. Just like example. Why did Shankar Dev tell us that we should read Bhagavān? When Parikit Maharaj, Parikshit Maharaj was cursed by the Brahmin to die, he was given seven days. Then in seven days you will die by the bite of one snake, tuk snake. So that time he called all the Rishis and Muni to come and give him advice. What is the duty of a man who is about to die? What is the best thing for all people for their spiritual uplifting?

So then the karma yogis came, the Kundalini yogis came, the Tanjuks came, all the various type of yogis came the different even from other planets. They came. If you see the list of the Rishis and Munis who came at that time, because he’s the grandson of Arjuna, he was a universal figure, not like now. Say our chief minister is a national figure, then our prime minister is an international figure. But Parikshit Maharaj was a universal figure. He was known even in other planets, being the grandson of Arjuna. Arjuna went to Indra Lota with Kṛṣṇa on several, on two occasions. Once with the Parijatra flowers, another time he went. At that time when he was cursed, he had to become a eunuch. So Arjuna was such a person that he could go even to other planets, which we cannot imagine. So his grandson is Parikshit.

So everyone knew him because he personally had darshan or Kṛṣṇa when he was in the womb. So when he was about cursed to die, all the yadishis came even from other planets, plus all of the great sages on this planet. So then he asked them, what am I to do? I have seven names. So they’re arguing amongst each other. The karma yogis are saying, you can do karma, but it’s in seven days, very risky. Seven days. They can’t give a guarantee that in seven days, by doing karma, you’re going to go back to, you get supreme. Then the Sangha yogis, the seven days, you have to learn, it will take many births. You have to learn hatha yoga, you have to go to the asana. All the things meditate in seven days. It’s not possible. You need more time like this. They’re all discussing.

Finally, they became just overwhelmed at seven days. We don’t have enough time. We need more time. Then we can give him moksha. But seven days is not enough time. At that time, Śukadeva Goswami came in, they all stood up and gave him respect. Then Parikshit Maharaj asked him, as the son of Yazdev, then what is your recommendation to me? I have seven days to live. What is the duty of a man who is about to die? How he can achieve Moksha, how he can achieve the perfection? And what is the duty of all people? So then he said, you have seven days. This is a lot of time. This is a lot of time. There is no difficulty in giving you complete liberation. And seven days time, because Maharaj got Bronger, he achieved Moksha in one moment. What to speak of seven days?

Everyone always say, we’re astonished that they are arguing. Nobody can find a way he’s saying that no problem. So they all sat down. All right, we want to hear what is his advice. And that was the way that Sukhadev Gosami, he began to speak for seven days and seven nights with Bhagavad. How one can be liberated even in one moment. So that’s why in this age of curly, nobody can guarantee how long we’re going to live. We have a short life also. Maximum 60 70 years, 80 years, maybe a few are going to hundred. But they’re very hundred. You would mean he’s a very old man. 90, hardly. You see 80 70, maximum more or less. You can see 60 50. Even my grand, my father, he left at the age of only 60 59. All my uncles, they left at 55 54.

But there are my grandfather, he left at 83. He was considered very old. So like that, how long do we have to live? So at any moment also we can leave this body. So that’s why the process of bhakti yoga was recommended by all the great acharyas. That this is a way that everyone can achieve success in a short time. Now, the thing is, some people think that Bhakti yoga is sentimental or it’s very easy or they don’t have a very positive idea about it. But actually Bhakti yoga is very systematic. That can be practiced in a very systematic way. The difference is this. Bhakti yoga is meant for active people. It’s more suited for active people. And those people who are more meditative then for them they may choose the other way.

For those people who are more attached to the bodily concept of life, they want to feel that they are the doer. That they are doing it by their own mind willpower or by their OwN this physical effort. They are more attached to the other physical yoga. He said, they feel that now I am doing the whole thing. In Bhakti Yoga you are doing the process. But in a sense you are leaving. There’s a mysterious effect that you’re leaving the effect up to Kṛṣṇa or Bhagavān. Actually, all you’re doing is meditating. Whole point of any yoga is yoga means to link up. You have to meditate. So if we meditate just as I mentioned, we want to stop the thinking. Then we can meditate on Paramātmā. So Bhakti yoga is doing. We replace the thinking from material thought. We are thinking as spiritual thoughts.

You don’t stop thinking. You stop thinking material thoughts. That’s why we say, we chant mantra. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Hare, Hare Ram. Hare Ram Ram.

Hare Hare.

In the beginning when we chant while we’re chanting, our mind will go and we will think of, I have to do this. I have to do that. This thing, that thing. The mind will go up. Meditation will not be so perfect. Again. Again we bring their mind back. We bring it back. After a short time, we’re able to chant, say ten minutes. We don’t think of any other thought. Only the thought is coming. Harsh. Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare. Hare Rāma. Hare Rāma. That moment when we are only thinking the sound, which is easy to do because the sound is helping us to concentrate. Then we’re in Samadhi. Especially early in the morning. We get up and we do meditation at 334 in the morning. Then all the devotees chant for 1 hour. Japa. That time in the morning the mind is very calm and peaceful.

So that time it’s very easy to meditate. We recommend that people in the morning, if they get up and chant some jaffa, then it’s very easy for them. For that purpose, we have these beads. These are tools for practice. We also give neem beats, pale beads, lotus beads. This uses. The idea is that we use the senses in their meditation. One, you have to stop all action and just sit quiet. The other is use the senses. We speak Hare Kṛṣṇa. We hear Hare Kṛṣṇa. Where that sense of speech, sense of hearing. Then we say we see the deity and we use our sense of eyesight, vision. We feel the beads, the sense of touch. We have some flower offered to the deity or incense, the sense of smell. All the senses are giving spiritual input.

So that way automatically the mind is brought into a focus. So that way it’s very easy. Within a short time, if you do that process, say even for one or two months, just on a trial basis, getting in the morning chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. This mantra, Hare Kṛṣṇa is. There are many mantras. Not only hare Kṛṣṇa, but Hare Kṛṣṇa is recommended. In the Kali Sandharana, Upanishad. Hare Kṛṣṇa. Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, hare hare Ram. Hare Ram. Nam nam kali kalmashanashanam, nata paratha, upaya, Sarba VedisheNHE. These 16 names. Kali kalamashanashanam especially meant to eradicate all of the pollution of the kali yuga. Kali kalamasha nashana. Even for Sami’s or Hindi, it’s very simple language. Kali kalamasha nashanam. So now you’re already pious people. You have maybe been practicing different form of yoga or something.

So if you do a little meditation like this, you get a very quick effect. Even if the people in foreign countries, the Chinese, the Russian, the American, they’re practicing who are not habituated to this type of religious background, they’re getting effect. There’s someone with very worst disease is getting infected. But to speak as someone who is basically pious, indian people are more religious minded. Even international polls have found that indian 99% people are religious minded. While other countries not so much. I was trying to awaken the kundalini. When I came to this moment I was doing Kundalini yoga, meditating on that form of kundalini. When I first came to the kīrtana I thought these people are jumping up and down in Kīrtana. This may be some way of raising their kundalinis. I was only studying yoga. I didn’t know bhakti yoga at that time.

I have been meditating for one year doing that mystic yoga process. I found in one week. The first time I was ready, I could sit and meditate for a long time. I could sit for hours and I sit for whole days. I’d put even strap around my leg.

And just sit like this and meditate.

Full lotus, half lotus. So then when they gave me the beats, they gave me a beats and I said, you chant. They gave me the mantra. I sat in the park and for 6 hours straight I chanted. I chanted one about 100,000 times. The mantra, the kame. I felt so much spiritual from that chain thing. More than one year I got from the meditation. Such an intense thing. In one week I was convinced that there’s something really powerful in this process. Then I decided I am going to do it for two months. That time I was a student in university. So I said, as a vacation for two months I am going to do it full time and see what is the actual. Just see if I get any real. Because in one week I got so much effect. Let me try for two months.

Then I flew to Montreal, Canada. I was in San Francisco. Then I met Bhakti Devantha, Swami prabhupāda there. And I had idea that I will go to India. So I asked him, should I go to India that time? He said no, for now you stay here, later I will send you. It was two years later he sent me to India. So after staying two months, then after that I have been ever since. I never left. I didn’t go back to my postgraduate studies or anything that way. Whether one is living in ashram or living in the house, this process is very easy to practice. Now we are trying to teach people how to practice this in their homes. The idea is this, say I am doing this kundalini yoga or I am doing raj yoga or standard yoga.

Now if I am a working man, as soon as I stop my meditation, I go, I have to go out to buy some bazaar. I have to go and see the relative. I am doing a material activity. My meditation is broken in a technical sense. Again, when I go back in meditation, I meditate. But it’s like going in and out on bhakti yoga the idea is that you can, by under guidance of guru everything can be done as an active meditation. Like we do the cooking and we offer that to Kṛṣṇa. So therefore when we go to bazaar we’re doing shopping for Kṛṣṇa because we’re going to offer the food to him. When the wife is cooking, she’s cooking to give to Kṛṣṇa. Then afterwards were eating, we’re eating for kidnap. I am doing other yoga when I am eating, I am not doing meditation, I am eating.

But when you’re doing bhakti yoga, your eating is also meditation because you’re eating prashant, your cooking is meditation and even your bathing, everything because then yeah, you’re doing, you have to keep your body healthy for doing the service to Kṛṣṇa. So that comes within. We don’t spend too much time on it, but we have to maintain the body, keep it clean. So even taking medicine, before taking medicine we say Śrī Vishnu, Śrī Vishnu or Dharma study. Then we take the medicine. So the whole time you find that 24 hours a day you can be in meditation. Karma Yoga, bhakti Yoga, Karma Yoga is a hunga of bhakti. So how to do the work in such a way that you’re always thinking, you’re always feeling that this work is being done as a service. So that can be done under the guidance of guru.

Say the guru suggests, all right, you’re a teacher or you’re a businessman or you’re. So you do this work and in this way you give 5% for the spiritual life. You give so much percent for this, you do that. So then the whole work becomes, comes a devotional service. All right, in your house you have one temple room. You do this meditation. You have to maintain your rent from the house. So everything, your house is a temple, you’re paying rent for the houses. Also you’re paying rent for the temple. So in this way, through the guidance of a guru, then one can be doing every work is an act of meditation. 24 hours a day. And then, Bala, people say they’re driving in their car or they’re sitting in their car.

They can either be chanting and Mālā, I brought here for demonstration purpose, for the act. People say they’re working out. They’re an engineer. Are you an engineer? I think one of you. So sometimes you have to go out and see the site and that. But sometimes you will be busy just checking everything. Sometimes if it’s a construction there, laying some concrete or something, you’re just standing there watching. It may take several hours. You have to see what they’re doing. That time that you. Sometimes you’re busy seeing plans. And sometimes you’re just standing there watching, and they’re going on. So that time we have these counting machines. Person can stand there in his mind. He can go on chanting. Even outside. He doesn’t have to say it. He can just very silently say.

And just keeping track, counting helps us to remind how many times we’re doing that. Makes us more serious in this way, through this type of machine. Then they can count. One of our other engineers, he was doing a big government project. And he’s going and supervising every day. So he was chanting 1400 times hare Kṛṣṇa mantra every day. 14, 1513 hundred. So the people on the site, they’re hearing the sound. Click, click, click. So they’re asking, what is this? What are you hearing in your hand? He said, you watch out. I am calculating everything you’re doing with my pocket computer. He’s very watchful and ask, you have to be careful. But actually, it’s a very simple. Beads are better because of the feeling. Like in Hauma, other time, we always recommend use of bead. But say beads.

A professional man, if he brings to the work site or something, people see the bead there immediately. They may think, what’s going on? He’s not serious about his workers. So I use these machines when the mothers have small babies. If they chant on their beads, when they are taking care of the babies, then the babies pull the beads, put the bead in their mouth. So then they use that. Then when the baby is asleep, they take the beads. Somehow or another, we should try to always chant, try to be in the meditation. Then our consciousness, by this type of unbroken practice, it goes higher and higher. Otherwise, say we meditate. Then we go on material activity using the other form than bhakti yoga. It’s like an elephant takes a bath. Then when it comes out of taking a bath, it throws again the dust.

So like that, say we’re MEditating a few minutes for an hour or 2 hours. Then again we go outside and we have to do then again it’s like bringing our consciousness down. No this is made in JAPAN, but they are re import for our members. They are available in CALCUTTA sometimes. So our. We know all the different yoga practices. But you can say that we know that in a general wAy. But our you can say PhD Life is especially bhakti yoga. We have to know if you are doing Bhakti yoga, you have to know all the yogas because they are all. Kṛṣṇa says that all the yogas are leading to the same goal. If somebody thinks that there is a difference between bhakti yoga and astanga yoga or gana yoga, he doesnt know. They all are leading to the param Brahman.

But the different paths are there, different ways and different levels of realization may be there. Like it says in Gītā Bahunam Janmanamante ganavan man padyante Bhasudeva Sarvamiti samahatma Sudhulavam, that after many births the gna yogis who have come to a complete understanding, they accept Vastudeva sarbam iti, that Vastudeva Kṛṣṇa, he is all in all, and therefore he is considered to be the most rare mahatma, great soul. What do you think? That’s why it’s recommended in this age that if we do the chanting of mantras that the names of Harihe, Hariya, Nama, Haryanama, Harya, Namaiva, Kivalam, Taluva, Nastiva, Nastiva, Gautiyam, yata. And many people, they may occasionally chant like in the satars or the harinams or different these sangeet, or what they call it, the Sikhs also doing sometimes they are chanting.

But if one actually does it in a very regular way, very serious way, then you get a very powerful effect. The thing is that why people ask Prabhupāda that, how is it that the foreign devotees, those in foreign country, why is it they got such a very fast effect? He said, because they don’t know any other process, they’re not having any other confusion. So whatever I told them, they do it. So someone just follows this process as it’s given in Shastra, they get immediately this effect. Problem is that we india, we have so many different gurus and different that we don’t fix ourselves in one thing. We try a little this little that, and you know. So as a result we don’t get a very quick effect sometimes.

So if we follow the process, which is not very difficult, just chanting every day for say 2 hours a day, and then gradually just adjusting the mentality under the guidance of guru, to see the daily activities in a more bhakti context than one. In a very short time, even within a matter of few months, they can experience a complete upliftment of consciousness. And this is the one thing, just like, even like Shankaracharya, he was saying, if you want to achieve moksha, you have to give up rehas to life. You have to become a sanyasa. But in Bhakti yoga, that has never been, that’s not at all required. In fact, all of the ravanu ja charia or Madra charya or Shankaradeva, or even chetanya dev, all of the various acharyas, most of them were all grihastas, at least at one stage of their life.

They were all greehastas and even mahajana, which includes Brahma, Shiv, nārada, the janak raj, prahlad bholi. So like that. So Janak raj was bihasta, vyas dev was grihastha. I mean, shiv and rāma, I won’t say anything about them, they’re in the higher states, but the Bali maharaj, they all were grihastas, but they’re considered as the mahajanas. So in this way, for grihastha, bhakti yoga is also the most practical, because there, the husband, wife, children, they can all practice sometimes because the women are more humble or more submissive in mentality, so they make more advancement in bhakti, because sometimes the men are a little more independent minded. So they don’t like to submit to any other authority. Maybe even they don’t like to submit fully to God. Just like when Kṛṣṇa came to see the Brahmanas who are doing Yajna.

At that time, Kṛṣṇa and Balaram came, said, we are hungry, can we have some food? So that time the wives of the Brahmanas came and asked that we want to feed Kṛṣṇa and Balaram. He has come. They said, no, we are busy now doing Yajna to satisfy Vishnu. We dont have time for this. Wait till were finished and you can only feed. So they are saying, we want to satisfy Vishnu. So they are doing by the YajnA process. By whom? So the Vishnu himself had come to their house in the form of Kṛṣṇa and Baluram, but they are neglecting it. So then the wives of the BRahmin, they disobeyed their husband, which for very traditional ladies, that was unheard of. But they in any way neglected their husband and their husbands.

And they prepared the food and they fed and offered to Kṛṣṇa and Balaram, the husbands. When they realized what happened, they were astonished. But then they also got that realization that actually Kṛṣṇa and Balaram is albuatar. And we are so proud that we couldn’t receive them or serve them. We’re doing Yajna only for their pleasure. But they came and we are too proud of our rituals that we neglected. But they disobeyed us. But they actually came to the higher level by surrendering themselves to Kṛṣṇa. So that way sometimes men are hesitant to follow the practice of Bhakti. But is that cosmopolitan trout? Karnataka asami? Hindi?

I do ask the questions.

Some ask in Bengali. So went together at the airport. I heard you came today to get me. But they got their schedule mixed up. They said I am arriving at 1010. He heard that I was leaving at 1010. So I was sitting there. I thought maybe they didn’t get the message. I scolded my secretary too much. Then how is it that you didn’t deliver that message? So then we came here by texting. Then I heard that you went slowly across. You didn’t? I was looking but I didn’t see.

Someone saving him.

Didn’t realize I was. We hear you’re a champion. Armrest. Did you like our temple in Mexico?

Yeah, I have been here twice.

Do you know Spanish? Spanish? Do you know Spanish? Because I am the guru in many south american countries. I have disciples in Central America and in Colombia. And I am the zonal secretary for Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia. Chile. Chile. I have gone to Chile. You went to Chile? No, you heard about it? I read it about in Java that Chile is 200 km wide, 3000 km long. The distance from Manipur, I think to maybe Tehiran. That’s how long it is. But with is from here to Tejpur, here to the only red wide. The north part is a desert is you can get mangoes, all tropical fruit. And the south is Antarctica. Antarctica. We have penguins. You have read about penguins in your book the little bird with black white? Yeah. People are very friendly there. It’s now winter there.

Winter.

When summer is here, winter is there. Is it South America? Mexico is northern hemisphere. Mexico is quite high up. About 6000, 8000ft. Do you have any questions? Mister Sharmingh? I surprised you. Even Indians from the other part cannot pronounce that. You’re a professor in the medical college? Oh no, I am way down a lot.

I am working in the department of social and preventive medicine, we involve an immune system. As an ages of zero and one babies. We’re working at grassroots level. The professors. That’s not on my ladder. That doesn’t fall on route anymore.

Not on route?

No. My road is individual.

Individual. He’s fed up with vet racing in normal society. He doesn’t like the normal society.

Everyone’s exploiting everyone.

That’s why you dress uniquely also.

Maybe.

Not really, no.

I don’t make a conscious effort to dress everything. Just that I am there and my.

That’s what the Vedas say, that each jīva is individual. Each one is different and unique. And we have a unique samantha or relationship with Kṛṣṇa. So the ultimate perfection of our individuality is when we are relating individually with Kṛṣṇa. Because he is able to. Bhagawan is able to individually relate with each person. Just like in Raslila, there are thousands of gopīs. And with each Gopī, he expanded himself. And each Gopī saw that Kṛṣṇa was with only him. He was only with her, I mean to say. So that way Kṛṣṇa, he can individually maintain relationship with each jīva. And that is the perfection of the jīva. No, but I like to. Why?

No, but there is one pertinent perspective.

You’re talking about Kṛṣṇa. I belong to a family that have.

Been Kṛṣṇa worshippers 500 years ago.

But I.

Me, I am a Shiva. I worship Shiva.

It’s all right, because Shiva himself is worshipping Kṛṣṇa.

No, he got that wrong.

And he’s got that wrong too.

He’s trying to make me believe that essentially they are.

If you think we have it wrong, then you think the Vedas have it wrong. I can show you so many prayers written and composed by Lord Shiva. Prayers are not the criteria.

Prayers are basically materialization of thought into life.

No, no. If Lord Shiva composes a prayer to Kṛṣṇa, so why you disbelieve Shiva? No, but it is not Lord Shiva who composes prayer. It is someone who composed a prayer about Lord Shiva.

You see, it was.

No, it’s Vyāsa Deva writing down the direct word of Lord Shiva, his upodesh. Just like when Pārvatī asked Shiva that there are so many types of worship. So which worship is the best? Then Lord Shiva replied to him that of all the various types of worship, the worship of Vishnu is supreme, with only one exception. And that is worshipping his Twadiya or those things connected with Vishnu. So like this, there are many places in vedas where Shiva himself has advised Pārvatī or other devotees about the worship. Of Kṛṣṇa and Vishnu. So we only find about Lord Shiva in Vedas. So you can. If you say, just like there is a half hen philosophy. Half hen means that say someone is saying that I want to take only the rear end of the chicken because it’s giving the egg the front end.

I don’t want because that end is eating. So, like, there’s some people, they’re taking that. All right. Whatever the vedas say about Shiva in my idea, then I will accept. But if vedas say something else, then what I want to, then I won’t accept. That way we can’t have half hand philosophy. We have to accept whatever vedas say from beginning to end. So sometimes Shiva is no doubt avatar. He is a full part of Vishnu and he has come for the purpose of being the supreme mahesh of this material world. He is the first progenitive symbol, masculine symbol, sambhu, religious. But at the same time, we have to know that he has a unique relationship with Vishnu. He has a relationship with Kṛṣṇa. But that if you want to find out, then you can find out from Shiva.

And he’s given his words in various purāṇas.

I get that. Essentially the difference is you propagate a.

Philosophy of non involvement in the material world whereas Shiva propagates a philosophy of involvement, aggression, force, violence to bring about a change.

If the change is for the better.

See the difference? The basic difference lies between childism and what you.

What you follow.

You have an idea about what we are propagating which is not accurate. It is not what we are propagating. Similarly, you have an idea of what Shiva is propagating which I may not also believe that is exactly what Shiva is saying. After all, Shiva was also a vaishnav acharya. And he gave his different advice to the people. We are not telling people to not be involved in the material world. We are saying that one should be like a duck or a swan in the water. You should be in the water of the material world. But you should be just like a duck. That when the water of the material world goes on your back, it should just roll off. And you don’t become wet or like a lotus leaf. Even the water is on the lotus leaf.

Even the lotus leaf is in the water. But the lotus leaf and the water don’t mix like that. Through bhakti yoga. We are in the material world but we are beyond the material world. And we are not also being affected by the material world in the way that other people, for instance, say that the whole material world is described like a spider’s web. And living entities are described like a yemenite. Small flies getting stuck in the web of Māyā. So then the weaver of the web, whether you say Kṛṣṇa or his incarnation as Shiva or whatever, that the weaver of the web is Vishnu. So those who are his pure devotees, they are like the baby spiders and Vishnu is like the big spider. This is Vishnu. Māyā vihe shaguna māyā mamadaya dharathaya mamay vajay papadyante māyā mei tan karanti te.

So just like this, small baby spiders, do they get caught in the web? You seen spider web? He’s a neutral judge. Have you ever seen a baby spider on the web? I never noticed. Didn’t notice. You ever saw a spider tangled in its own web? It’s caught up in its own web where it’s running. The flies are caught up, isn’t it? Spider is just moving on it and the other insects come and just stuck on that. They get stuck. So like that. When we are the devotee, when we are connected with Bhagawan, then we don’t get stuck in the web. You can move on the web, but you don’t get stuck. But when you are in an independent mood, then when you go to it, you get tangled up in the web. I would say that Shivites are more giving up the world.

Bhakti Yogis dislike judicial. If you want to say that, you could say many of the Shivites, the Kumbh mela, most of the nagasmith, they are followers of Shiva. I dont know if they are true followers or not, but they are claiming to be followers of Shiva. But they are giving up the world, taking Gansh and other things. That’s their particular way. But we find that, for instance, we have doctors, we have lawyers, we have businessmen. I may be a sannyāsī, I give him my life for preaching. So therefore I may have given up worldly activity because my occupation is preaching, you see. But we have so many others. Just like I have been telling how they can in their homes, they can be practicing this, how they can do the meditation.

Have I ever said that you should give up the home or should give up the meditation? I even said we’re not recommending, like I rather said, Judaism Parikshit, so many great devotees. They were running the entire world. They didn’t give up the world, but they are considered Param bhaktu.

Now I’d like to, just a small analogy see your prophetic a region that.

Has which harmony law it is tranquility. We are propagating a religion or a.

Way of life that has harmony.

Tranquility, basically non turbulence. We are against tranquility. We are against calmness. Actually, if you think mother Jesoda is the best devotee, she was never tranquil in her whole life. The milk is over boiling. Kṛṣṇa is going, I have to feed Kṛṣṇa. What about the demon? She’s always an agītāted sin. She’s never tranquil. Tranquil is for the Mayavadis, the Advaita vadis who say everything is one. They want iT. Oṁ Santi. These are gainer yogis, but Bharti Yogis, they are doing the big utzabs, Kirtans. They are always trying to. Just like you say, mother Jesoda, when Kṛṣṇa was making stealing butter from the monkeys, she is chasing Kṛṣṇa. What are you doing? Capturing Kṛṣṇa, tying him down. Then he pulls the Arjuna trees down. Then she’s all, you see, she’s always in a. We don’t find that she’s very peaceful.

But she’s peaceful in a higher sense because all her anxiety is out of love for Kṛṣṇa. So we consider that she’s always in ecstasy. Her anxiety is not like the anxiety of a material person who is worrying about other material problems. Because her anxiety is for Kṛṣṇa. She’s in for a month. Therefore, Kṛṣṇa is crawling. Even though he is Param Bhagavān, he is crawling in her house just like a child. So in that sense, you see, bhakti yogis are not. We are actually against this idea of total tranquility. We are for unity and diversity. We want that person should be able to be peaceful even if the whole earthquake is going around. Arjuna is a prime example. He was in total peace in the battlefield of Kurukshetra. But how one can be peaceful?

On the battlefield of Kurukshetra, there’s a war, the bloodshed everywhere, killing. But he is not. I mean, peaceful means he’s angry, he’s fighting. You can’t fight unless you get angry. But within that he’s got an inner peace. Because Parthasarati is there, Kṛṣṇa are driving, he’s fighting not because he wanted to fight. He wanted to not fight. He wanted to give up all the violence. But Kṛṣṇa told him that for the right cause, you should fight. For me, you should fight. If you fight because of winning or losing, then you have to take the karma. But if you fight because it’s my desire, you fight, then I will take the karma. And for you there’s no reaction. There’s no sin. So then Arjuna decided for you. I will fight for myself. I don’t want to fight but for you.

If it’s a your desire, then I surrender to you and I will fight. So even we’re teaching that. How Hanguman when he is fighting for Ramchandra, he’s peaceful, he’s a bhakta. How Arjuna was fighting. He’s a bhakta. He’s peaceful. So that way we’re not for this external type of tranquility. Because say that there’s some disturbance come then that gets spoiled. But inner peace should be there that even if outwardly there’s some difficulty inner a person.