19910106 Bhagavad-gītā 17.11–13

The following is an evening lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on January 6, 1991 in Melbourne, Australia. The lecture begins with the reading from the Bhagavad-gītā 17.11–13.

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-gurun dina tāriṇam
paramānanda-mādhavam śrī caitanya īśvaram

vidhi-hīnam asṛṣṭānnaṁ
mantra-hīnam adakṣiṇam
śraddhā-virahitaṁ yajñaṁ
tāmasaṁ paricakṣate

Translation to text 17.11: Of sacrifices, the sacrifice performed according to the directions of scripture, as a matter of duty, by those who desire no reward, is of the nature of goodness.

Purport: The general tendency is to offer sacrifice with some purpose in mind, but here it is stated that sacrifice should be performed without any such desire. It should be done as a matter of duty. Take, for example, the performance of rituals in temples or in churches. Generally they are performed with the purpose of material benefit, but that is not in the mode of goodness. One should go to a temple or church as a matter of duty, offer respect to the Supreme Personality of Godhead and offer flowers and eatables without any purpose of obtaining material benefit. Everyone thinks that there is no use in going to the temple just to worship God. But worship for economic benefit is not recommended in the scriptural injunctions. One should go simply to offer respect to the Deity. That will place one in the mode of goodness. It is the duty of every civilized man to obey the injunctions of the scriptures and offer respect to the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Text 17.12 translation: But the sacrifice performed for some material benefit, or for the sake of pride, O chief of the Bhāratas, you should know to be in the mode of passion.

Purport: Sometimes sacrifices and rituals are performed for elevation to the heavenly kingdom or for some material benefits in this world. Such sacrifices or ritualistic performances are considered to be in the mode of passion.

Bhagavad-gītā 17.13

vidhi-hīnam asṛṣṭānnaṁ
mantra-hīnam adakṣiṇam
śraddhā-virahitaṁ yajñaṁ
tāmasaṁ paricakṣate

Translation: Any sacrifice performed without regard for the directions of scripture, without distribution of prasādam [spiritual food], without chanting of Vedic hymns and remunerations to the priests, and without faith is considered to be in the mode of ignorance.

Purport: Faith in the mode of darkness or ignorance is actually faithlessness. Sometimes people worship some demigod just to make money and then spend the money for recreation, ignoring the scriptural injunctions. Such ceremonial shows of religiosity are not accepted as genuine. They are all in the mode of darkness; they produce a demoniac mentality and do not benefit human society.

Thus end the Bhaktivedanta Swami translation purport to text 11, 12 and 13 of chapter 17 in the matter of “The Divisions of Faith”.

Jayapatākā Swami: Earlier in the Bhagavad-gītā it is mentioned that yajño vai viṣṇuḥ – sacrifice should be performed by every human being for the satisfaction of yañja or Viṣṇu. By offering a sacrifice for the pleasure of the Supreme Personality of Godhood, all auspicious things are bestowed upon the devotee. If the devotee simply feels grateful for everything that the Lord has given, and to express that appreciation, the devotee in turn offers some of the gifts of the Lord back to the Lord in devotion. So that type of sacrifice is spiritual or in the mode of goodness. This is actually the desirable type of sacrifice. It’s not uncommon that when there is some political problem, some political leaders or politicians decide to do fast until death, or to do relay fast or some kind of austerity for some political purpose. But this is actually not recommended.

That’s nothing to do with religion at all, because it’s simply for some political purpose. But it looks like religion. That’s called apadharma. It’s not actually dharma. It just looks like dharma. It looks like some kind of spiritual practice. Here the spiritual practice of sacrifice. We all need to sacrifice. The Vedas go at great length to explain the laws of karma. For everything we do, there is an equal opposite reaction, sometimes a greater reaction. In order to escape the effects of our own previous errors, we need to perform some sacrifice.

For instance, there is five types of karma called ajñāta-karma, ajñāta [break] unavoidable bad karma. So nobody, somebody wants to be very good. He doesn’t want to harm anyone. But even without desiring to harm anyone, there is five kinds of harm a person is bound to do to others, even accidentally. When you sweep your house, some small insects will get caught by the broom. How can you avoid it? When you turn on the oven hidden inside the stove, there may be some insect, some microorganism, that get toasted, even without you knowing it. When you breathe, you are breathing in microorganisms and some of them are getting crushed, dissolved away in your mouth, in your throat. When you cultivate the land, ploughing or hoeing the garden, or you buy vegetables that were cultivated by someone else, some insects, worms or something will get mutilated in that process. They will be hiding under the surface of the earth. And when you are walking, you may step on some insect, some ant or something. Even though someone may not want to harm anyone, they may be a vegetarian, they may be very careful about not causing others harm, do pain. Still, these five types of unavoidable harm is going to be done to others. So in order to counteract this type of undesired bad karmic activities, it is recommended that everyone should perform yajña or sacrifice. Also, just out of love, someone may perform sacrifice, because Kṛṣṇa is so wonderful. We should offer . . . when we offer something for His pleasure, that is the meaning of sacrifice. So this type of . . . There are different types of sacrifice – kṛte yad dhyāyato viṣṇuṁ [SB 12.3.52], in the Golden Age, the process was meditation. In the Silver Age, the process was fire sacrifice. And in the Bronze Age, it was temple worship. And now we are in the Iron Age, what is the process? Anyone knows?

Devotees: Chanting.

Jayapatākā Swami: Chanting what? Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. This is the sacrifice recommended for this age. It doesn’t cost anything. Anyone can easily perform it.

In the time of Lord Caitanya, everyone knew they had to perform sacrifice. But they forgot what. What is the purpose of sacrifice? Ultimate purpose is to please Kṛṣṇa. People had forgotten that they were just performing it just for the sake of some other purpose. Some people were performing because they wanted to show off that they were more religious than anybody else. So I explained that in Navadvīpa, just prior to Lord Caitanya’s advent, everyone was so called religious. It was very superficial. They were simply showing lip service. So they wasn’t actually spiritual. For instance, in Vedic culture, it’s considered very pious to marry your daughter. To give your daughter in marriage to a nice young bridegroom. So that was being done. So one father, he would spend a lot of money, get his daughter married in a very pompous way. Then another rich man, he would also do it in a better way. So the first one is defeated. So he felt bad, he had no more daughter. So then he decided, I will have to defeat the other person, have a better wedding ceremony. So he decided to marry a Deity of Lord Śiva with Pārvatī. So in this way they had a big wedding ceremony between two deities, clay models of Śiva and Pārvatī. The other person had already married, given his last daughter in marriage. So he was being defeated. So he thought, I had to do something [?]. So he married a female dog with a male dog, a moth [?] with a bitch, with a big ceremony, offering flower garlands, fire sacrifice, brāhmaṇas chanting mantras. But dogs don’t need to be married. They don’t have the need for marriage license. It’s for human beings. Neither Pārvatī and Lord Śiva, they are already married millions of years before. So the other person he thought, he is defeating me. Big festival for a dog. So he made another festival, married two cats. So all the devotees are watching, what is going on in the name of religion, they are just inflating their ego, nothing to do with spirituality. They are hiring the priest to [?] joke. But this was being passed off as some kind of religious activity, like playing bingo sometimes. What does that do with pleasing God?

So, sacrifice is actually, where we give our time, our energy and we offer it to Kṛṣṇa. And we don’t have to ask for anything. It’s more intelligent not to ask for anything, actually. Because whatever you ask, maybe you won’t ask for enough. Someone goes to pray, “O Lord, give me 10 bucks. Then he gets $10. After that they get spent. “Actually, I get it 100.” Then they spend 100. Next day, “I give you a thousand.” Then they come back and say, “What I really need, is 10,000.” “Next I need really 100,000.” And it goes on. So when you devotee serves Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa knows what that devotee needs. There was a brāhmaṇa Vipra Sudāmā. He was doing his daily devotional service and chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare. He was intellectual, he was a priestly family, his wife, children, they were living in a grass thatched hut and living nicely, but very poor. So his wife would sometimes nudge him that, “Your schoolmate was Lord Kṛṣṇa, you are godbrothers, why don’t you go and visit your old friend Kṛṣṇa and ask Him to give you something, so you don’t have to remain in this poverty.” He said, “No! What is the use? We are very happy.” Wife didn’t see things exactly the same way he did. She wanted a little more facility. So she kept reminding him. So one day he thought, “Alright, let me go see Lord Kṛṣṇa.” But then as he is about to leave, he thought that, “I had to bring something to Kṛṣṇa. What will I bring? So I have nothing to bring Him.” And nothing was in the house. So he went begging and he brought, he brought through begging some flattened rice, ciḍā in India. He wrapped it up in the end of his dhoti in a ball like this kind of cloth, if you have to carry something, it’s very handy. Just put it here like this, fold it up a few times, tie a knot, throw instant sight there. So he did like that. Then he went off to see Lord Kṛṣṇa. This was 5,000 years ago, when he got to the land of Kṛṣṇa. He can see huge palaces, so many soldiers and elephants and beautiful people residing in Dvārakā. And he thought, “How will Kṛṣṇa remember me? He is so opulent.” When he went to the gate guard, but everyone just directed him in, no one stopped him. He went to the seven major gates, then finally came up to the personal palace of Kṛṣṇa and Rukmiṇī. So there he entered inside. He was brought right to the quarter of Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa, when He saw His old friend, His schoolmate Vipra Sudāmā. He embraced him, had him sat down on His own seat. And He and His wife bathed his feet, and said, “You must be so tired after the long journey. You being a brāhmaṇa. We are kṣatriya.” Actually, the Lord is playing like a king, when actually He is transcendental to everything. But He is playing like that. So He is bathing the feet of His devotee. Kṛṣṇa said that, “My devotee is My heart and My devotee’s heart is Me. Because My devotee is always thinking of Me and I am always thinking of My devotees.” Kṛṣṇa is so pleased when His devotee is served. In fact, even Lord Kṛṣṇa Himself serves His devotee. So this way He received Vipra Sudāmā. And they sat down and they were talking. He said, “How is everything?” Just like old friends. And Rukmiṇī was fanning with her own hand Vipra Sudāmā. Then Kṛṣṇa saw that in his cloth, there was that something wrapped up, “What is that? Have you brought something from Me?” Vipra Sudāmā looks around, so I can see it’s a beautiful palace. Just imagine all this as gold and diamonds. Then he thought, “How can I give this to Kṛṣṇa? I just borrowed something from the neighbor, some flat rice.” Flat rice is something like corn flakes or rice krispies, that category of things, not so well refined.

Devotee: More tasty!

Jayapatākā Swami: More tasty, no doubt, natural just to give . . . I don’t know, here they may not know. So he didn’t want to give such a very humble thing to Kṛṣṇa. So he said, “No, no, I can’t give. It’s not worthy to give You.” There is no anything My devotee brings. It’s . . . It’s fine with Me.” He grabbed that cloth and he untied, “Oh, my favorite flat rice!” He took one bite, “Hmm!” “No! No! Don’t take it, don’t take it. No, no, it’s a . . .” And He is pushing his hand away, take another bite, “Great!” He goes for the third time, the Mother Lakṣmī Rukmiṇī grabs His hand, “Please Lord, two is enough.” This has a very esoteric meaning. Why only twice? Even Kṛṣṇa wanted to know. He asked. Rukmiṇī said that, “Whatever service Your devotee does, I have to reward the devotee. So Vipra Sudāmā didn’t have anything. He had to go out and borrow or beg from others this ciḍā flat rice. So when you take one time, that already means that he’s given for more than what he had. So I should give him with one time when You are taking, I should give him all kind of opulence. The second time I should give equal opulence with You. And if you take a third time, I should give him then more opulence than You have. And that’s not possible because there is no one with more opulence than You. You are all opulence. So I will be very hard pressed to reward Your devotees for the service You are accepting from him, if You take three times.” I don’t know if you could follow that. I said it esoteric. Lakṣmī automatically wants to reward the devotees for their service. So Vipra Sudāmā, he didn’t ask anything of Kṛṣṇa. He didn’t want to ask. He was so happy he could see Kṛṣṇa face-to-face. Kṛṣṇa was not only his worshipable Deity, he was also his friend. He loved Kṛṣṇa. So he could never bring himself to ask Kṛṣṇa, “You know my wife wants to get a new house or wants to get some new clothes” or he couldn’t ask anything of Kṛṣṇa. He wanted to give everything to Kṛṣṇa. So he bid farewell to Kṛṣṇa and he went back and he was just thinking the whole time how Kṛṣṇa’s smiling face, their discussion, tears of love were in his eyes, so practically he couldn’t see so well where he was going, being overwhelmed with his loving sentiments. Finally, when he was returning back to his house, the distance he was looking for his house, still he couldn’t see his house. He saw a gigantic palace. He said, “Maybe I took the wrong turn.” He looked around and said, “This looks like the place, where I live. Where is my house? Who threw a palace on top of my house?” (laughter) Then he saw some very nicely decorated ladies coming to greet him with garlands in their . . . flower garlands in their hands. Then he actually saw that they weren’t just some ladies, actually it was his wife with some maid servants, assistants. And she said, “Look here, this wonderful new facility.” Then he realized that although he didn’t ask for anything, Kṛṣṇa already knew he knows what everyone wants more than what they he could never ask for such a facility, couldn’t ask for anything but Kṛṣṇa provided. So he accepted as Kṛṣṇa’s mercy, made it into a very nice temple and used it for Kṛṣṇa’s service. So the Lord rewards different devotees according to their own desires. You don’t have to ask Kṛṣṇa, He already knows better than you do. What will make you satisfied? We our whole life, we think, “Let me have this thing, I will be happy!” We work for it, when we finally get it, “Oh! This isn’t so good” and we try for something else. Or maybe we want something which is out of our reach. So we remain unfulfilled always. So if we leave it up to Kṛṣṇa, When you look in your Kṛṣṇa is [?]. When you get your wish fulfilled, you don’t have to wish. Kṛṣṇa will fulfill, whatever your internal desire was in a better way than you can imagine. The pure devotees, they don’t want anything. They just want Kṛṣṇa to be pleased. So Kṛṣṇa, He always wants to please them.

There was one brahmacārī devotee of Lord Caitanya, his name was Śuklāmbara Brahmacārī. And he would always go everyday chanting:

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

And he will go to five people’s house and beg some alms, get some grains, just enough grains that he would take that cook offered to his Deity, and take prasādam. He didn’t bother . . . He told different people and, “Only five people today.” So he was having his bag filled with grains that he had begged, he was walking back down the street, chanting,

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

And then Lord Caitanya was coming from the other direction, and He said, “Oh, there is Śuklāmbara Brahmacārī!” Immediately Śuklāmbara Brahmacārī offered his obeisances to Lord Caitanya. Lord Caitanya, “Oh, what do you have in the bag? Anything for Me?” “No, nothing for You.” Not that he didn’t want to give. He didn’t think it was good enough to give to Lord Caitanya. He said, “This is not good enough for You. This is some ordinary grains, I got.” “Now let Me see.” “No, no!” “Yes, yes!” So Lord Caitanya, He is trying to reach to the bag and he is trying to keep it hidden behind him. But Lord Caitanya is seven feet tall, and His arms would go down to His knees. So he could understand, He had a very long reach. Śuklāmbara Brahmacārī was no match for Him. So He just grabbed him and then took the bag, “Let Me see what you have!” Like holding him up. He is trying to get the bag back, just because he is thinking, “No! No! Don’t take it. It’s just too ordinary.” Then, “Oh, my favorite flat rice!” He took once, twice. Lakṣmī was not there to stop Him. (laughter) So the Lord, He had very intimate relation with His devotees.

When Lord Caitanya had took His 200,000 devotees to the house of the Chand Kazi to protest against the wrong order of the government, to ban the chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa in the streets of Navadvīpa. And when the government rescinded the order and said, “No one can obstruct chanting of Hare Kṛṣṇa anywhere in the domain again!” They were so happy that all the devotees, they started rejoicing in the street jumping and chanting. They are going around-and-around, chanting. Finally, they got to the plantation of Kholāvecā Śrīdhara. He had a banana plantation, a nice forest. So they all sat under the trees in his orchard and were relaxing. But because being a banana plantation owner, maybe in Australia it’s big, I don’t know. But in Bengal at that time, it wasn’t very lucrative because everybody was living in a semi-rural situation. They all had bananas house to house. So there wasn’t much demand in the market. It was like you can buy tons of bananas for like a cent. So it was . . . He was very poor, although he had a big orchard. So he was a very good devotee. So Lord Caitanya said, “All this chanting. I am very thirsty, can I have a glass of water?” But he didn’t have a nice glass. All he had was a cast iron cup. I think those have been obsolete for some time. I have never even seen an iron cup. But they had it long time ago. But this was our ordinary iron cup. This was a cracked iron cup. It was old and warm, had a crack in it. So he said, “Here . . . Kholāvecā Śrīdhara said, “I don’t have any suitable cup. I will go next door and get from my neighbor a nice brass cup.” The Lord says, “No, no, you give Me that cup.” “No, there is a crack, iron rusty cup.” It wasn’t actually very rusty because they are not using it a lot. But you know, even if they think like that. “No, no, that’s alright. It’s being used by My devotee. It’s good enough for Me.” “No, no, it’s not good enough for You, Lord. I will get You a better cup.” Then Lord Chaitanya started moving in on the cup. Kholāvecā trying to grab the cup tight, and he could get away. “No, no, I am going to get a better cup. This is not good enough.” But Lord Caitanya was too fast for him. He had him on, grabbed him, took the cup away from him, went and poured the water and then took a glass of water. “Ah! Taking water from the cup of my devotee, ecstasy!” For the Lord, He would take the simple things that His devotee offered or even didn’t want to offer because it was so simple. But he would accept it. Showing that we don’t have to offer very wonderful sacrifices to please the Lord. What we have to offer is, just that desire to do something which is pleasing to the Lord. Even though for the Lord, wanted to do something better. But with that desire alone was enough to please the Lord and He would accept even the same thing. Of course, if there is some rich multimillionaire and then instead offering a nice cup, he offers something broken or something very miserly, that is not very good.

There is a time when Rāmānujācārya, he was traveling between Śrīraṅganātha temple to the Tirupati temple. And he sent his two disciples ahead to tell two messengers, senior disciples to go and make arrangement on the route, where he would stay. So he said, “In such and such a town, I have two disciples. One disciple is very wealthy merchant, so we can stay at his house. So there is no trouble for him to provide for us and our party. And the other disciple is a very poor man.” He said tell both that, “I will be coming, and I will stay with them.” So first they went to the rich man, his disciple. [break] But those poor Vaiṣṇavas, who had walked two days to see him, they were not fed, they were not offered even a glass of water. So they left his house, and they went to the house of the poor man. And he said that, I don’t know what . . . he went there immediately. They offered him a place to sit. Although it was very simple, house, grass mat offered some water. They didn’t have anything in the house. Whatever they had, they offered. So they went back and reported everything to Rāmānujācārya. And he said, “This is very bad, these neophytes, this rich disciple is a real neophyte. He thinks that only you serve the guru, that’s everything. And he is neglecting the Vaiṣṇavas. This is a great offense. I won’t go to his house. We will go and stay with the poor disciples. They don’t know how to serve the Vaiṣṇava. How can they serve the guru?” This is neophyte stage, by offending the Vaiṣṇava, you cannot serve the guru. He was very displeased. So Rāmānuja and his party, they went and they arrived at the house of the poor disciple. So just so happened that he wasn’t there at the time. He was out collecting alms. He was a brāhmaṇa, so he had no his . . . brāhmaṇas are allowed to go door to door and collect some alms. He wasn’t at the house. So the wife, she immediately put down seats for Rāmānuja and his followers. And then she said, “I just have to go. I am just being in the back preparing the meal.” And she wanted back, “What to do? We don’t have anything in the house. I don’t have so much as a grain of rice. Completely empty.” So then she thought, “What to do. I had to serve my guru. I had to serve all the Vaiṣṇavas.” So she remembered that in the market there was one lusty merchant. Every time she’d go by his shop, he would whistle at her or make some kind of proposition, “You have a poor husband. Come with me, I will give you so much.” So she was a very chaste wife. She just ignored this low-class person. But she thought, “I have to serve the guru.” So she went and told that man, “Listen, you have to give me one feast for 20 people worth of foodstuff, and then I will come back and I will satisfy whatever you want.” So he was very happy, alright. He gave all the grains everything bought for a bit. Then she cooked this big feast, opulently, ghee, fries, all this, just like a whole feast. Just like a real opulent feast. Offered it to the Deities, gave it to Rāmānuja. They were all shocked. “How can a poor lady, poor brāhmaṇa, get so much opulent things?” In the meantime, the husband came back. He was astonished, “Where did you get all this?” And then she told him the truth, “This is what happened. I didn’t know what to do. Let me go to hell. But let the guru be served.” He was astonished. He has so much devotion for the guru. He took her to Rāmānuja and said, “Look at, this thing happened!” He was amazed by this devotion of this chaste lady. So he said, “Alright, you take this mahā-prasāda and you give it to that man.” And he put a special blessing on that prasāda. So the husband took the wife to that rich merchant’s house. She came in and gave him the prasāda and was glorifying Rāmānujācārya and everything. When he took the prasāda, the remnant from Rāmānujācārya’s plate, he had a change of heart. And he fell-down. And he said, “You, please forgive me. I am a great sinner. How could I lust after another man’s wife? Somehow you gave me this holy food. I realized I am a very fallen person. Please forgive me. I don’t want anything from you. Please forgive me for my offenses and my sinful attitude.” And then he found that his husband was outside. So he came and he apologized to the husband. But then he said, “No, you have to come and meet Rāmānujācārya.” So he brought him to Rāmānujācārya. And then he surrendered, and he got blessed by Rāmānuja. And he also became a Vaiṣṇava.

Meanwhile, the rich disciple found out that Ramanuja was in the town. He came and he begged forgiveness, “What offense I have done?” They explained, “You didn’t serve the Vaiṣṇavas. You are only glorifying your guru, saying your guru is great. Guru has to be served. And offending so many Vaiṣṇavas, thinking only your guru’s service is important, neglecting all the Vaiṣṇavas. So therefore, guru has rejected you.” “No, no, please. I was so excited I forgot. But I want to serve all the Vaiṣṇavas, please . . .” He bowed down, he was touching the Vaiṣṇava’s feet, begging Rāmānuja, “Please forgive me. I just got excited that it was an oversight. I never . . .” You know, he was like, didn’t know what to do. So Rāmānuja could see was very sincere. “Okay, on the way back, when I come back from Tirupati, I will stay at your house.” He was forgiven for his oversight. We are living in a Kṛṣṇa conscious community. We have gurus, we have senior devotees, Indian devotees, junior devotees, neophyte devotees. All kinds of levels of devotees. But we respect all the Vaiṣṇavas. Lord Caitanya said all Vaiṣṇavas should be respected. If someone thinks that there is only God in my temple or my guru is the only guru, he is only uttama-adhikārī. Everyone else is neophyte, that person is known to be himself a neophyte. Mat-guru jagat-guru, everyone thinks their guru is Jagat-guru. That’s natural. I have faith in my guru. I love my guru. But that doesn’t mean that I should go and offend other guru. Because other devotee has similar faith for his guru. We have to have that type of broad vision that every disciple has faith in their guru. If they didn’t, why did they accept guru?

Narottama dāsa Ṭhākura was studying under the Six-Gosvāmīs. But he accepted Lokanātha Gosvāmī as his guru. His dīkṣā-guru, he respected the others, some were śikṣā-guru or others were senior Vaiṣṇavas. He worshipped them, he served them. In the time of Lord Caitanya, you had so many great Vaiṣṇavas. But one Vaiṣṇava, you take shelter and offer all your service through that Vaiṣṇava. He is your guru. But you respect all the Vaiṣṇavas. When we say, vande ahaṁ śrī-guru śrī-yuta-padakamalaṁ śrī-gurūn vaiṣṇavāṁś ca – to that guru, my guru, I am offering my obeisances to all the other gurus, previous and śikṣā-gurus. I am offering my obeisances and I offer obeisances to all the Vaiṣṇavas. This is our system. And if somebody is going and he is trying to push his guru only and offending other gurus, how will that please Kṛṣṇa? So things have to be done in a certain etiquette. So the ācāryas, they teach, you respect your guru. You want to serve your guru. This is natural. That should be encouraged. But at the same time, you respect all the Vaiṣṇavas in an appropriate manner. And you respect other people’s faith for their guru. Each individual develops faith in his own way. So Kṛṣṇa may inspire faith in a disciple for his guru in a particular way. Some other devotee may not be inspired the same way by Kṛṣṇa in the heart. He may be inspired for another devotee. This is natural. So in this way time of Lord Caitanya, there are this many gurus, many Vaiṣṇavas, they are all working cooperatively. So Prabhupāda wanted in this International Society for Krishna Consciousness, we have many devotees, even we have many gurus. But everyone is working cooperatively together. That is what Prabhupāda wanted. He said, the proof of love . . . how you can show how much you love me is how well you cooperate together. So whatever inspires someone to do the pure devotional service to Kṛṣṇa, that inspiration that if they are getting from the spiritual master, that is absolute, that is wonderful, that may or may not inspire another devotee in the same way. That doesn’t matter. But all the Vaiṣṇavas should be respected. And whoever you have absolute faith in, who is giving you the most inspiration in devotional service, you accept that person as your guru and you offer your service to him. But not to the point that you neglect other Vaiṣṇavas or you commit offenses to Vaiṣṇavas. These are the basic teachings. So like this, Rāmānuja was accepting a devotional service from different devotees.

So just as Kṛṣṇa was accepting service, the guru has to sometime accept service from the disciple. But that is on behalf of Kṛṣṇa. That is to train the disciple. So that when it comes time to offer Kṛṣṇa directly service, they will know how to do it properly. Their misconceptions should be eradicated. But it was misconception stay, then it will be very difficult to get back to Kṛṣṇa. So, the real ācārya, he teaches how to offer devotional service in the transcendental mode. How to do sacrifice in mode of goodness or transcendental mode. But if that training is not given, then the guru will be in trouble. And also, the so-called disciple will be in trouble. Just like Bali Mahārāja, he was offering sacrifice to Viṣṇu, he conquered over the whole universe. But when Viṣṇu Himself came and begged, “Give Me three steps of land!” His so-called guru came up and said, “Don’t give it to Him,” “What?” “Because He is Viṣṇu!” “So we were always worshipping Viṣṇu, by worshipping Him, we got to this position. I own the whole universe now, I have conquered all the planets.” “No! If you give Him what He wants, He will take everything from you.” “If He is the Supreme Lord Viṣṇu and He wants to take everything, who am I to stop Him?” “If you don’t follow me. I am your guru. I curse you, you lose everything. You better lie to Him. Say you can’t give it.” Otherwise, He will take it. Because why, that so-called guru is thinking, I won’t get money from my disciples. If he gives everything to Kṛṣṇa, he will have nothing left to give to me. This is not a proper attitude for a real guru to simply see the disciples as dollar signs or gold weights. But that was the problem with Śukrācārya. So in order to get that benefit from his disciple, he was willing to compromise karma. Therefore, Bali rejected his guru, correct thing to do, when he was not giving the proper instruction to serve Lord Kṛṣṇa. So Kṛṣṇa did exactly what Śukrācārya did. Took everything from Bali in two steps. Took the whole planet and took the whole universe. Then He said, “You said, I could have three steps of land, but I have two steps. I have taken everything. So where do I put to third step?” Then Bali Mahārāja said, “Alright, I have nothing more to give but one thing, I still have my body. You take my body. Put your third step here at my head. I am surrendering myself to You.” Nitāi-Gaura Premānande! Hari Haribol! This way he got the blessing of Vāmanadeva and later Śukrācārya came and said, “I was a fool, I made a big mistake. I give a wrong advice to my disciples.”

So here in this verse today in Bhagavad-gītā, we see there are three types of sacrifice: goodness, passion, ignorance—unmotivated, motivated and totally ignorant. Speculative, no reference to [?]. People are doing also, concocted sacrifices, very dangerous. The satanic worship, so many things going on now around the world. These are all in mode of darkness. Chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare – this is the best sacrifice in this age. And also today we have had a special sacrifice. We have offered offerings to the Lord in that sacrifice, and we want all of you to help us completing that sacrifice by accepting the remnants of those offerings – the prasāda feast.

Devotees: Jaya!

Jayapatākā Swami: I hope that you will be able to fulfill this desire. All willing to help in this project? (laughter) So this process is sacrifice has nothing to do: chant and sing Hare Kṛṣṇa, dance in ecstasy and take some remnants of the sacrifice, feast prasāda here. We hope that you like this a simple way of doing sacrifice, but by giving a little offering to the Lord, to Kṛṣṇa. This is the easiest way of becoming self-realized. This is the sublimest form of yoga. This is a yoga, but it’s a yoga of systematic devotion. Devotion itself is a form of meditation but it’s an active kind of meditation. It’s more fulfilling and more direct than just sitting and meditating in the tip of your nose or on a candle. It’s very direct. Its immediate results can be felt by the devotee, and they become very spiritually endowed. So I think that’s enough for tonight. Is there any questions?

Devotee: Announcements.

Announcement you want to make it? Or should I read it? Śrī Śrī Rādhā Vallabha Annadāna Project, this week Sunday Feast was sponsored by: 1. Anand Sagar $150.

Devotees: Jaya! Haribol!

Jayapatākā Swami: 2. Gītā and Sītā: $100.

Devotees: Jaya!

Jayapatākā Swami: 3. Vijay $100.

Devotees: Jaya!

Jayapatākā Swami: 4. Sūrya Nārāyaṇa Mūrti $50.

Devotees: Jaya!

Jayapatākā Swami: Would you like to help sponsor the feast? Please contact Nitāi Gosāi Dāsa. Where is he? Vijaya Gopīkeśa Dāsa or Aniruddha Dāsa.

Public service announcement. Very nice service the devotees are doing offering a feast for the all the guests. But the guests also like to put some donation, in a donation box, no harm. So more people can take this in the future.

Is there any question on today’s class?

Question: Kṛṣṇa used to get up in the morning and meditate [?].

Answer: He would get up in the morning and meditate on Himself, just to give a good example to others. He would get up at 3:30 in the morning. He doesn’t have anything to meditate on. But He still didn’t get up at 3:30. Because when He was on this planet He was acting like a human being. So He followed the rules and regulations that human beings should follow to some extent, just to give a good example. Because if He didn’t do anything, then others might take that as a standard. We don’t have to do anything. Kṛṣṇa took a guru and he followed the orders of the guru. He rose early in the morning because we should rise early in the morning. He only ate food and immortal goodness offered by His devotees, because we should eat His prasāda.

Any other question?

Question: Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam describes, in the different ages, how the same result is attained that can be attained by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. Satya-yuga meditation, in Tretā-yuga performing big sacrifices, does that mean that in the Satya-yuga by performing the meditation process and in Tretā-yuga by performing yajña that the yogī or the devotees they attain kṛṣṇa-prema?

Answer: That verse says that, kṛte yad dhyāyato viṣṇuṁ tretāyāṁ yajato makhaiḥ/ dvāpare paricaryāyāṁ kalau tad dhari-kīrtanāt – what you will get in Satya-yuga by doing meditation, Tretā-yuga by doing fire sacrifice, in Dvāpara-yuga by doing temple worship of Lord Kṛṣṇa. You can get the same result in Kali-yuga by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. So by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, you can get the same result. You can also get more by chanting śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu-nityānanda śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda. And chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, Hare Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa, Hare Hare/ Hare Rāma, Hare Rāma, Rāma Rāma, Hare Hare, on the order of Lord Caitanya. [break]

Question: If you offer food as Kṛṣṇa, in order to avoid karma. [?]

Answer: If you offer food as Kṛṣṇa, in order to avoid karma. In the beginning, if someone out of wisdom they approach Kṛṣṇa, they know that this is the best thing for me to do. So they approach Kṛṣṇa out of wisdom. I mean they are offering their food everything. But by doing that they will become purified. And eventually they achieve pure devotional service. TTo be freed from karma, if we eat food and we know it’s sinful and we know that Kṛṣṇa doesn’t want us to do bad karma and so we offer the food to Kṛṣṇa, because there will be no karma. So why is that in the mode of passion, we are trying to do what Kṛṣṇa wants us. If we do happen to want to do what Kṛṣṇa wants us to do, that’s in the mode of goodness. But that may not be complete. In other words, as you say, if a person simply thinking, “I want to avoid the karma,” there is no other motive that is not a complete understanding. But by taking prasāda, that realization will gradually grow. If a person thinks that let me commit this sin and then I will eat prasāda and counteract it, that’s in the mode of passion or ignorance and that’s offensive. That is sitting on the strength of the Lord’s mercy. To sit on the strength of chanting or on some devotional service, this is offense and that stops us from getting that mercy. But just if I eat food that’s not offered to Kṛṣṇa, it’s sinful, so I am offering it to Kṛṣṇa to eat karma-free food in itself, that’s not negative, that is intelligence. It may not be pure devotion, at least it’s in the mode of goodness. You are trying to avoid bad karma, that’s intelligence, that’s in the mode of goodness. But when you want to do this to please Kṛṣṇa and you actually develop some attachment to Kṛṣṇa, some special love for the prasāda as not different from Kṛṣṇa, that’s transcendental.

Question: [inaudible]

Jayapatākā Swami: Seems like a tall order? Well, someone asked Prabhupāda, “How is it possible for us to see Kṛṣṇa. Since he is so great.” Then Prabhupāda replied that if you want to see the king or the queen, it may be very difficult. But if they want to see you, who is going to stop them. While you are doing devotional service, if Kṛṣṇa wants to see you, who is going to stop Him? You are doing devotional service, if Kṛṣṇa wants to take you back to His spiritual abode, what can someone do? One day in Montreal, I was there, Prabhupāda was to going giving a lecture, he said, “We should be cent percent Kṛṣṇa conscious, then we will be guaranteed to go back to Godhead. And he was ready. He was like cent percent, 100%. The devotees are kind of feeling, their heads, hundred percent! So he looked around and he was just kind of turning to get off his . . . very big high āsana, had a big table in front, a big book stand. So he could get off and on from the sides. He started turn a little bit. He said, even 90%, and He will still take. (laughter) Devotees started to perk up a little bit, but then they started meditating 90%. (laughter) So by this time Prabhupāda already was like sliding off the getting down from the āsana. Then he again turned to the devotees said, “Even 80% and He can!” the devotees are getting a little more lively. And some were still thinking like 80%. So then Prabhupāda, he was walking off from the vyāsāsana and he had a cadara, like shawl type cadara. And he was holding his hand, and it was like stretched out. He turned to the devotees, “See, Kṛṣṇa is so merciful. Even if you are 70% Kṛṣṇa conscious, He can still take you.” Then he threw that cadara over his shoulder. He walked up and his head high. Śrīla Prabhupāda ki jaya! So you try to leave the rest to Kṛṣṇa, the guru. Prabhupāda said, “I don’t depend on my devotional service to get back to Godhead. And I am depending on the mercy of my spiritual master. He will drag me back.” So we try to do our duty, serving guru and Kṛṣṇa to the best we can, always trying to improve. And we depend on their mercy. If they want to take us in this life, they don’t take us in this life. We still want to do nothing but serve the Lord. Then maybe next life, simply keep us somehow or another in their service. And by their mercy, if they want, they can take us in this life. What is the difficulty that was confirmed by all the śāstras.

Do you know how to tell a uttama-adhikārī, when you see one? Anyone can say how to tell recognize uttama-adhikārī.

Devotee: Everyone starts chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, in his presence?

Jayapatākā Swami: According to the śāstra. First qualification of uttama-adhikārī is he cannot be recognized. (laughter) So you look in the Nectar of Devotion. So we try to be devotees. To be a devotee is so wonderful, so great. Just see how Kṛṣṇa is embracing His devotee, taking the food from the devotee’s hand. This was the one point I wanted to make. I don’t know if it didn’t come across to everyone here today that if you just see that, to be a devotee of Kṛṣṇa is actually the most glorious thing. Even as we cannot be God even if we wanted to. And being a devotee of the Lord is better than being the Lord. Because, the Lord, He loves the devotee more than He loves Himself. He loves His devotees so much that even He Himself agreed to become His own devotee just to be able to experience what love the devotees are having for Him. So He came as Caitanya Mahāprabhu. And Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s saṅkīrtana movement of chanting, ‘Hare Kṛṣṇa’ is present now in the world. So we can take advantage by chanting, ‘Hare Kṛṣṇa’ and participating in the saṅkīrtana movement. This is the greatest opportunity. So thank you very much. Hope that all of you will become purest of devotees and taste the full nectar of Lord Caitanya Mahāprabhu’s mercy.

Hare Kṛṣṇa! And bless me that I can be a devotee also.