19961107 Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 1.16.12

The following is a class given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami on 7^th of November, 1996 in Zurich, Switzerland. The class begins with a reading from the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, 1^st Canto, Chapter 16, verse 12.

Jayapatākā Swami:

oṁ ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya
caksur unmilitam yena tasmai śrī-gurave namah

nama oṁ vishnu-padaya kṛṣṇa-preshthaya bhutale
śrīmate bhaktivedanta-swamin iti namine
namas te saraswate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracharine
nirvishesha shunyavadi pashchatya desha tarine

namo mahā-vadanyaya kṛṣṇa-prema-pradaya te
kṛṣṇaya kṛṣṇa-chaitanya-namne gaura-twishe namo namaha

he kṛṣṇa karuna-sindhu dina-bandho jagat-pate
gopesa gopīka-kanta rādhā-kanta namo 'stu te

tapta-kancana-gaurangi radhe vrndavanesvari
vrsabhanu-sute devī pranamami hari-priye

śrī kṛṣṇa caitanya prabhu nityānanda
śrī advaita gadādhara śrīvasadi-gaura-bhakta-vrnda

Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare
Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare

Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevaya
Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevaya
Oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevaya

nārāyaṇam namaskritya naram cha eva narottamam
devim saraswatim vyasam tato jayam udirayet

mūkaṁ karoti vācālaṁ paṅguṁ laṅghayate girim
yat-kṛpā tam ahaṁ vande śrī-guruṁ dīna-tāraṇam
paramānanda-mādhavam śrī caitanya īśvaram
Harihi oṁ tat sat

bhadrāśvaṁ ketumālaṁ ca
bhārataṁ cottarān kurūn
kimpuruṣādīni varṣāṇi
vijitya jagṛhe balim

Translation: Mahārāja Parīkṣit then conquered all parts of the earthly planet—Bhadrāśva, Ketumāla, Bhārata, the northern Kuru, Kimpuruṣa, etc.—and exacted tributes from their respective rulers.

Purport: Bhadrāśva: It is a tract of land near Meru Parvata, and it extends from Gandha-mādana Parvata to the saltwater ocean. There is a description of this varṣa in the Mahābhārata (Bhīṣma-parva 7.14–18). The description was narrated by Sañjaya to Dhṛtarāṣṭra.

Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira also conquered this varṣa, and thus the province was included within the jurisdiction of his empire. Mahārāja Parīkṣit was formerly declared to be the emperor of all lands ruled by his grandfather, but still he had to establish his supremacy while he was out of his capital to exact tribute from such states.

Ketumāla: This earth planet is divided into seven dvīpas by seven oceans, and the central dvīpa, called Jambūdvīpa, is divided into nine varṣas, or parts, by eight huge mountains. Bhārata-varṣa is one of the above-mentioned nine varṣas, and Ketumāla is also described as one of the above varṣas. It is said that in Ketumāla-varṣa women are the most beautiful. This varṣa was conquered by Arjuna also. A description of this part of the world is available in the Mahābhārata (Sabhā-parva 28.6).

It is said that this part of the world is situated on the western side of the Meru Parvata, and inhabitants of this province used to live up to ten thousand years (Bhīṣma-parva 6.31). Human beings living in this part of the globe are of golden color, and the women resemble the angels of heaven. The inhabitants are free from all kinds of diseases and grief.

Bhārata-varṣa: This part of the world is also one of the nine varṣas of the Jambūdvīpa. A description of Bhārata-varṣa is given in the Mahābhārata (Bhīṣma-parva, Chapters 9 and 10).

In the center of Jambūdvīpa is Ilāvṛta-varṣa, and south of Ilāvṛta-varṣa is Hari-varṣa. The description of these varṣas is given in the Mahābhārata (Sabhā-parva 28.7-8) as follows:

nagarāṁś ca vanāṁś caiva
nadīś ca vimalodakāḥ
puruṣān deva-kalpāṁś ca
nārīś ca priya-darśanāḥ

adṛṣṭa-pūrvān subhagān
sa dadarśa dhanañjayaḥ
sadanāni ca śubhrāṇi
nārīś cāpsarasāṁ nibhāḥ

It is mentioned here that the women in both these varṣas are beautiful, and some of them are equal to the Apsarās, or heavenly women.

Uttarakuru: According to Vedic geography the northernmost portion of Jambūdvīpa is called Uttarakuru-varṣa. It is surrounded by the saltwater ocean from three sides and divided from Hiraṇmaya-varṣa by Śṛṅgavān Mountain.

Kimpuruṣa-varṣa: It is stated to be situated north of the great Himalaya Mountain, which is eighty thousand miles in length and height and which covers sixteen thousand miles in width. These parts of the world were also conquered by Arjuna (Sabhā-parva 28.1–2). The Kimpuruṣas are descendants of a daughter of Dakṣa. When Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira performed a horse sacrifice (yajña), the inhabitants of these countries were also present to take part in the festival, and they paid tributes to the Emperor. This part of the world is called Kimpuruṣa-varṣa, or sometimes the Himalayan provinces (Himavān). It is said that Śukadeva Gosvāmī was born in these Himalayan provinces and that he came to Bhārata-varṣa after crossing the Himalayan countries.

In other words, Mahārāja Parīkṣit conquered all the world. He conquered all the continents adjoining all the seas and oceans in all directions, namely the eastern, western, northern and southern parts of the world.

Jaya Śrī Śrī Gaura Nitāi!

It is mentioned here that the women in both these varṣas are beautiful, and some of them are equal to the Apsarās, or heavenly women.

Uttarakuru: According to Vedic geography the northernmost portion of Jambūdvīpa is called Uttarakuru-varṣa. It is surrounded by the saltwater ocean from three sides and divided from Hiraṇmaya-varṣa by Śṛṅgavān Mountain.

Kimpuruṣa-varṣa: It is stated to be situated north of the great Himalaya Mountain, which is eighty thousand miles in length and height and which covers sixteen thousand miles in width. These parts of the world were also conquered by Arjuna (Sabhā-parva 28.1-2). The Kimpuruṣas are descendants of a daughter of Dakṣa. When Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira performed a horse sacrifice (yajña), the inhabitants of these countries were also present to take part in the festival, and they paid tributes to the Emperor. This part of the world is called Kimpuruṣa-varṣa, or sometimes the Himalayan provinces (Himavān). It is said that Śukadeva Gosvāmī was born in these Himalayan provinces and that he came to Bhārata-varṣa after crossing the Himalayan countries.

In other words, Mahārāja Parīkṣit conquered all the world. He conquered all the continents adjoining all the seas and oceans in all directions, namely the eastern, western, northern and southern parts of the world.

Thus end the Bhaktivedanta Swami translation, purport to text 12, chapter 16, canto 1 of the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, How Parikshit Received the Age of Kali.

9.05

Jayapatākā Swami: So one aspect of the Māyāpur project is to present the Vedic planetarium and to show how the Vedas are presenting good astronomy, to show people the different aspects of the universe.

Sadāpūta Prabhu has been specifically researching. Of course, Śrīla Harikeśa Swami and others have also done some research in the past. Sadāpūta Prabhu, from the scientific point of view, he has presented recently a video of his research during the Bhāgavatam class in Alachua for the Continental Meetings. And he presented how the different dvīpas and the oceans mentioned in the 5^th Canto of Bhāgavatam, that those distances mentioned, if you take them to be the… taking the orbits of the planets in a geocentric formation, that they are the… that they work out to be exactly in every respect, the different… the… planets’, orbits around the earth. Because instead of going around the sun, they are going around like this, going around the earth. They go in a formation that’s quite kind of a looping form in relation to the earth, and the… those bands exactly equal, what is mentioned in the Bhāgavatam. Within one percent according to the calculation, or three percent according to the calculation of the modern science, and according to the yojana – 8.5 miles.

So… which is a standard measurement for yojana, and so… and he shows how basically when the Vedas were saying that there is a… world is flat is describing that all the orbits in our planets in our solar system are going on one plane, not like in an electron and the nucleus of an atom where they go on all three you know directions- up, down, sideways… every, doesn’t go like… all the planets are going in one plane. The orbits are not going… other planes… but more or less on a flat plane, and the flatness and the dimensions described can only be discussing the plane of all the planets.

Now… then … one should develop that. Actually, there is a part of the world that we can see, but there is a lot of parts of the universe that we are not able to see with our present vision. There are on a… we have to become more qualified to be able to see this other parts, so you can go to these other parts of the universe. They are like in a slightly different dimensional base. And there is scientific evidence that such dimensions exist. There is different descriptions, different phenomena for which modern science has no explanation. So they either call it parapsychological or they call it, “Well this is something we haven’t figured out.” And put it off one side. But there is a phenomena that proves that there are higher dimensions, that there is to some degree. Like I was explaining that there is a poltergeist phenomenon, where things start to appear out of the air. Physical objects appear out of the air, and they go from one place, they disappear and they come out of the air somewhere else. This has been videoed, this has been recorded by scientists; they have no explanation.

The yogīs are having one siddhi which is called prāpti-siddhi. They can reach out and bring something from anywhere and bring it to where they are instantaneously, even though it is thousands of miles away. This is possible if you can take it out of this time and space dimension in that place, then you go into another dimension which doesn’t have time and place… space, but it’s… And then bring it back into this dimension, where… over here, where it has time and space again. And so you can cover vast areas in no time at all, because you go between the two points without actually going between the area because… it is very complicated but… He showed how scientifically… it’s not that complicated but it’s a whole new concept, that there is another dimension which is beyond time and space, that’s as a material area which one can get access to if you have the… know the process.

Similarly, there may be, there is different kind of levels of existence as we can see here. Some of these areas mentioned have lifespans which are different, have different kinds of people living on it, people that we don’t normally seen. So these areas were accessible to Parikṣīt Mahārāja, to Arjuna, to Yudhiṣṭhira. They were so highly qualified.

Some of these areas are not so visible to present people, who lack this kind of a qualification. In any case, all of the visible world, and lot’s of… some of the world which may not be observable to us at the present time, in our present technology or qualification, was all conquered by Parikṣīt Mahārāja. Actually, it’s already been conquered by Yudhiṣṭhira, he just reaffirmed his dominion and visited all the different places. This is also interesting that how the emperor in those days would visit all of the parts of his empire, and Parikṣīt Mahārāja went especially because he heard that Kali was influencing different parts of the world, and he wanted to ensure that Kali would not be able to spread the influence. This is a very important symptom, you see.

If you in good health, then you can notice every symptom of disease very easily. If your health is very bad, so many things are wrong, it’s hard to know exactly what is causing what problem. Today the society is so rotten, it’s so diseased with so many afflictions of Kali-yuga, that it’s very difficult to ascertain what is the real problem and what is the real solution. But at the time of Parikṣīt Mahārāja, things were so nicely organized that if even a little bit of these sinful activities appeared in some part of the world, it would be, it would stick out.

In this place someone is trying to eat meat, over here some people are having prostitution, alright just take care of that. And now the whole world is so rampant with these things that you can hardly, you can pick out where the places where it is a little less, otherwise everywhere it’s exceedingly contaminated.

So, in these 5,000 years since Parikṣīt Mahārāja, Kali has taken control. This is mentioned in the Brahma Vaivarta Purāṇa. I think that I mentioned here that before. That in the Brahmā-vaivarta Purāṇa, in many places Prabhupāda mentioned that because there will be a golden age of 10,000 years of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.

And there was paṇḍita in South India who said, “Where does it say in the scripture?” Just because your guru says, you know, “We want to see some śāstras.” he was like really antagonistic”, well, must be there but this is what we perceived and but sometimes we discuss with other paramparās, they want the Vedic proof. It turned out that the same pandit after about two weeks came back, and himself was looking to prove that it was not in the scripture, and then he found in the Brahmā-vaivarta Purāṇa, 125^th kaṇḍa. He said that, “Now I really believe what you people say because here I found that it was predicted that after 5,000 years in the Kali-yuga, someone will come and spread the chanting of the holy names all over the world.” And then he showed us his copy, and that’s exactly how it was exactly translated in Malayalam. We found the original Sanskrit. Of course, there are one or two versions of the Brahma-vaivarta Purāṇa, I don’t… we only found one, I don’t think there is much difference in the others.

But there it mentions, in the pastimes of Kṛṣṇa in Dvārakā, that near the end of His pastimes all of the sacred rivers appeared to Him. Gaṅgā, Yamunā, Sarasvatī, Narmadā, the different presiding Deities of the different rivers including Brahmaputra and others, they all came to Kṛṣṇa and they had tears in their eyes and they were like very emotional and they pushed… huh … kind of gently… pushed Gaṅgā ahead as the spokesperson, and Lord Kṛṣṇa smiled and all of them received them, and then said “Why are you all crying? What’s wrong?” And Gaṅgā said that, “We can understand from the symptoms in the world, that the Kali-yuga is beginning very soon. Because already few symptoms that are coming up. That means that You are about to leave, and we cannot live without You. You have to please have your mercy on us, take us all with You.” (Fired up translator)

So… she said, “You have bathed in our sacred waters, You have blessed us in so many ways. And then when You leave the world, our whole existence will become empty. Moreover, in Kali-yuga people will become very sinful, and they are all going to come and bathe in our waters and leave all our sins on us, and in this way we are going to become contaminated by all these sins. So we are very frightened also. So please take us with You, we don’t want to stay here in Kali-yuga.

Then Lord Kṛṣṇa, He smiled at them and said, “5,000 years, sinful people are going to be bathing in your water and leaving their sins. But after 5,000 years someone is… one great devotee is going to come, who is going to spread the Kṛṣṇa consciousness all over the planet, all over the worlds. And even in distant lands, you see. Everyone is going to… there is going to be ekavarṇa, this is specific, just sticks in my mind, the one śloka… that ekavarṇa. We know that for caturvanya, there is four varṇas – brāhmaṇa, kṣatriya, vaiśya and śūdra, but then Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura said that we have to establish daiva-varnāśrama.

Daiva-varnāśrama, meaning everyone is a devotee of the Lord, and then they perform their devotional service in accordance to some regulated program. But predominantly they are all devotees of the Lord. So here the Lord, He expresses here that… that, there would be ekavarna, there would be one varṇa- Hari Bhakti, Hari Bhakta, everyone will be a devotee of Hari.

You can see also that in one sense that this is predicting daiva varnāśrama. Everyone will become a devotee of Kṛṣṇa, and that would be the predominant varṇa. In daiva varnāśrama, the devotional aspect is the predominant nomenclature, and then for other things as supportive. And then Lord Kṛṣṇa, He began to glorify how a Vaiṣṇava… even by hearing about a Vaiṣṇava, even by seeing a Vaiṣṇava one gets purified from all kinds of sins. What to speak of touching a Vaiṣṇava?

So then it is explained how this Vaisnavas from all over the world would come to the… bathe in the holy rivers, and you can recognize them because they will be chanting the holy names of Kṛṣṇa, and in this way so many sins will be freed from the pile of sins that the holy rivers have. See… of course, when the devotees go to the holy rivers, they are thinking that, “I will get purified.” The rivers may be thinking that, “The devotees are coming, we are getting purified.” All the devotees are humble.

Once Śrīla Prabhupāda said that he wanted to go and bathe every day in the Ganges. Actually, Śrīla Prabhupāda can even purify the holy places by his presence. So, in this way Lord Kṛṣṇa said that by this spreading of the Harinam and the ekavarna everyone becomes a Hari Bhakta. In this way there would be a kind of a Golden Age of spirituality, and which will grow for dasham sahstrani, 10,000 years. You see, that time will be very wonderful time, and you should stay and experience that. Then Kṛṣṇa said, after that Kali gets a firm grip on things. He gets a firm grip and it becomes very hellish. And then Lord Kṛṣṇa told them, “You can then go subterranean.” Just like Saraswati river has already gone beneath the earth, you can go beneath the earth and hide until the Satya Yuga. So that way sinful people won’t bathe in there.

So, later also it says somewhere in the Bhāgavatam, how in Kali Yuga the rivers appear to dry out. So it seems that many of them are hiding. In the later parts of Kali Yuga they go under the earth, they flow under earth until the Satya Yuga, when they come out.

So, Lord Caitanya has come 4500 years after the beginning of Kali Yuga. It mentions 5000 years, someone would come and spread the movement to the whole world. Lord Caitanya came and presented it in India. Then His representative has come and spread it to the rest of the world. So we underestimate sometimes or maybe we don’t really appreciate how important Prabhupāda’s bringing Kṛṣṇa consciousness around the world is. How momentous an occasion it is - it was. Very easily we are likely to… you see some devotees getting enamored by the scholarships of some other pandits or you know the flowery language or the beautiful beard, or whatever it is, some other features, in Vrindavan or Mathurā district or something, and get bewildered by what their actual duties are. Actually just like Parikshit Maharaj has established his dominion over these different parts of the earthly planet area. We can see we have a lot of preaching we have to do, lot of books have to be distributed, lot of people have to be engaged in the chanting the holy names in all these different parts you know. There is new big scope for the B.B.T, here in different varshas.

I don’t know what type of language would they speak? We may have to be translating all of Prabhupāda’s work back into Sanskrit or something, who knows? But in the future we have to reach the Kṛṣṇa Conscious movement to all parts of the solar system, universe. This was indicated one day in a morning walk by Śrīla Bhakti Siddhantha Saraswati Thakur. Who knows? Morning walk, evening walk, but he was walking with some disciples and he suddenly stopped and he looked up at the moon, and there he saw the… he was gazing at the moon for a long time, he was looking at it, then he turned back to the devotees and said that, “Now the people in the moon planet have become bahirmukh. They have become materialistic. They are turning their face away from Kṛṣṇa. There is an urgent need that we go there and preach.” Of course, he wasn’t meaning going by some… In those days there was not any rocket ships or anything, but spiritually the preachers need to reach all parts of the universe. Of course spiritually, the preachers need to reach all parts of the universe. And his disciples were like scratching their head, “How do we go to the moon, and how do we preach there?”

Of course the people on the moon don’t live on the same dimension or the same level that we live on. They have another higher level. But there they may also… it is not so high up.. heavenly planets….little range, and there the people can also become quite materialistic. We found even the sons of Kuvera, they became materialistic even on very high part of Swarga, and they were cursed by Nalakuvera and Manigriva, were cursed by Nārada Muni to come and appear in Vrindavan.

So this spreading of the sankirtan movement to different parts of the world, and different parts of the universe. Right now, this is a very exiting activity - to see people becoming again God Conscious, to reclaim the earth which was once under the Vaiṣṇava dharma. Parikshit Maharaj, is demonstrating here …completely kept under Kṛṣṇa Consciousness the whole world, but now there is not such a, you know a dominion of Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, a dominion of the Kali. So Kali is here in borrowed time, Kali is here you know. It’s like- your time is up. It’s like someone’s lease has run out in the apartment, but they are just sitting in there until the next occupant comes.

Sometimes we have to push the person out. Kali is just, it’s not going to just walk out, “So, ok, you guys take over.” We have to kind of evict him. But it’s time now for Kṛṣṇa Consciousness.

Therefore, the devotees systematically present this message, just as Parikshit was very determined and fearless in presenting. We have to very determined and fearless in presenting Kṛṣṇa Consciousness and we have to become very efficient, you see, to gain the ... once, you see, it’s not just like you…just like Parikshit went and conquered everybody like the… you know sometimes in Europe, the tribals, the great (Indisctinct) and people they came in and conquered, but they didn’t maintain a very effective administration. They kind of conquered, looted and left, and I don’t know all the history. Probably you can correct me, but as far as I understood this a few times, when there was just kind of attacking and more destructive situation happened, then effective administration.

As compared to say the Roman Empire or the Greek Empire, where they actually tried to administrate large parts of the world for a significant period of time. The period of administration was either nil or very short under this other… few of the other… attacking people.

So, it’s not that we want to go in and raid some place and just convince somebody and then… but there is actually no practical way that they can practice it. We have to have the full package. When Parikshit Maharaj went and conquered, he also established his standard of administration, that in this country, these things will not be allowed. You have to ensure that this happened.

That was… I was reading a book, what it means to be an emperor when I was visiting Humpy in South India. We saw the Vijayanagara capital, that was existent at the time of Lord Caitanya. Lord Caitanya visited there, and Kṛṣṇa Deva Ray was the emperor at that time, and it mentions that there was one European, Italian or some European had visited his capital and had noted what was going on there and it has been published in the European… to the king here in Europe …that he was reporting to, and he described really an opulence, a culture, everything, described… various aspects of their different ceremonies they are performing and processions, and cremation and different things… It was not a very superficial, it’s quite detailed. And he also was reported there how the different kings under the emperor. An emperor means he has many kingdoms under his control. Each of them had to pay one third of their total tax… income… to the emperor and had to… and there was like a contact, how much, how many soldiers they had to provide to the emperor every year. So from there, they would have their own armies, but they would also have to provide soldiers to the central army.

So the empire had a very big army which they raised. I think something like now the United Nations. This kind of a perverted reflection of an empire, although this… that, but everybody is contributing like for Bosnia or something, they are giving their soldiers and people are serving in these… in the United Nations army, and everybody has to donate money. So this is a same kind of a thing was there in an empire, that you had to give a percentage. But it wasn’t a donation, we had to give it. We had to give so many soldiers. That was the difference from our side. We are trying to achieve the same kind of situation through our democratic… so called democratic United Nations.

So we can see that, that you get some kind of a unified control in the world to ensure any kind of stability. That was automatically achieved under Parikshit Maharaj. So anyway, even in the… that was, we can get from the history, we don’t always get all the details today, exactly how it works. But Mahabharat, it give us many details because there Bhīṣma Deva was explaining to Yudhisthir Maharaj how a perfect Kingdom should work, how an empire should work, how much tax the emperor should get, all these kind of things are mentioned to different degrees in the Shanti Parva of the Mahabharat, but how a king should run his government.

So in the future we can show how a proper administration should be set up in the country. You can get to that level of development.

Actually Śrīla Prabhupāda was driving one day with a… we were driving with him, riding with him, he went by a Parliament house of the State Parliament or State Assembly; it’s like a Parliament in Bengal. And he mentioned that in this representative bodies like the Parliament, Assembly, Legislature, the… all the people, they… all the law makers, should all be brahmanas. They all should be following regulative principles. If there are people from other religions, they should strictly following their principles so that people there are all pious, and thus they come with proper decisions which would be good for the society, and this… of course other places it’s not so much need to make so many laws. Because the laws are already there in the Vedas, it’s rather how to apply them.

So, different times Prabhupāda said different things. You could see how today, like in many countries, in the third world specially, people who get elected to be a government are mainly, many of them have criminal records, are very violent, they are like Gang leaders or warlords or something. They get in out of sheer muscle power, and so on. In this way the democratic process is a joke. In some places it’s maybe it’s not a joke but it’s not very… it’s not really very representative, it’s… it’s a different power. Sectors are actually taking possession.

In any case, whatever… all these things are going on in one level, but we can see here from our point of view as a devotees of Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, that we need to follow in the footsteps of Parikshit in the spiritual sense to spread the Kṛṣṇa Consciousness everywhere, just like he spread Kṛṣṇa Consciousness all over the world, through his military might. We can spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness through the spiritual potency of Lord Caitanya.

If there is a democracy and of all the people or the majority of the people became Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, well, then you can elect a Kṛṣṇa Consciousness government, you see. You see, now that’s the principle system of how the policy is changing in the world, by their elective government, but the people are not Kṛṣṇa Consciousness in many…most part of the world, and therefore the things that they allow are under the influence of Kali.

So Parikshit Maharaj, he didn’t only conquer and just enforce things by military force, but somehow he got everyone to perform sacrifices, he had the people chanting the holy names, Hare Kṛṣṇa Hare Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Kṛṣṇa Hare Hare Hare Rāma Hare Rāma Rāma Rāma Hare Hare.

He was obviously supporting Brahmanas who were doing preaching, Brahmanas and Vaishavas.

So military force, you cannot just implement in this program because people will resent it, and will not actually in their heart accept it, and devotional service people need to accept.

There is a story about one Bhagavān Singh, who was a great … he was a powerful king in… a few hundred years ago. And he realized that people should chant the holy names. So Bhagavat Singh… Bhagavān Singh, he made a law that everyone had to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. Everyone in the evening had to get together in small groups and they have to chant. It’s like, he made a law that everyone had to do Nāmahaṭṭa, and the whole Kingdom would be engaged in chanting.

One day Bhagavān Singh, he went in a ordinary dress you know, and in disguise and he was going around to see whether people were really following his instructions or not, whether they were chanting… Haribol!, to see whether they were all chanting, and he went… and in one place there was a group of people chanting, it was already slightly over the time for chanting. He was observing why this people are not chanting? Then he overheard some one person say, “Alright let’s go, time to do our daily chanting, you know, then other person said, “Ah this is Bhagavān Singh’s trip. It’s like his thing.”

So then he could see that, even though he… he had done something for the welfare of everybody, but just because he had made it a law, that they had to do it, so then some people were resenting, “… we are forced to do this, it’s his thing, it’s not that we want to do it.” He could see that simply by the edicts of the government things don’t work. Even if you go into the …some of the Islamic counties have made so many rules about what the people have to do to enforce the rules, but as soon as they get the opportunity, there are so many people who escape and try to do other things, and inside their house they break principles.

So slight.... there has to be some regulations of the government, but you have to have actually preachers, preaching and convincing the people. Very strong pure preachers spreading the knowledge, otherwise it doesn’t work just by some kind of governmental rule.

Anyway Bhagavān singh, he had such a heart, he was such a king, you have to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. The real thing is to get people to want to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa.

In fact in some places in the world, wherever the Hare Kṛṣṇa was banned, the people became more interested, “There must be something good there, the government says not to do it.” (Devotees laughter)

Sometimes when it’s underground then people are more interested than when everything is allowed, that’s a strange kind of a psychology. So every place that we are, we should be preachers, we… we have freedom to preach Kṛṣṇa Consciousness, then we should really take advantage of that opportunity. We should systematically train people, and actually what’s needed is not just a few preachers. How can you reach everybody with just a few preachers? We need to reach everybody, that means that everyone that we meet we have to bring around to being a preacher also.

Lord Caitanya ordered everyone to accept Kṛṣṇa Conscious movement and to distribute it everywhere. So not only accepting but also distributing.

So when somebody gets the books of Śrīla Prabhupāda and accepts these teachings, we have to also… the temples Śrīla Prabhupāda said are places people get trained up, how to practice in their homes and how to also distribute the message further.

In this way can make more book distributors and more preachers. Some will live in the temple, and most people will live in their homes.

In the first Canto of Bhāgavatam, Prabhupāda also explains how the who society should be based. People’s homes should be an environment of Kṛṣṇa Consciousness. They should live in that environment, how everyone should be chanting the holy names, how people should be telling others about it.

This movement is not destined just to be a small movement - minority religion. This movement is actually meant to be the majority culture. We are actually, Prabhupāda said, “Conquer by culture.” In the West here to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness to every place. This is our goal… mission statement, majority of the people will be Kṛṣṇa Consciousness…” inundation.

The Kali is just you know sitting there, waiting you know, that “well , they are not taking away the role from you, I am just not going to just give it up, and people habits start to change. All these big business that are based on sinful habits are going to go bankrupt. You are gonna have to re… you have to change their product line to some other Kṛṣṇa Conscious products, some satvika products instead of tamasic things.

Śrīla Prabhupāda ki

Gaura Nitāi ki