20021226 Srimad-Bhagavatam 7.12.11

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

The following is a lecture given by His Holiness Jayapatākā Swami Mahārāja on December 26, 2002 – in Melbourne, Australia. The lecture begins with a reading from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 7.12.11.

Jam. Ram. Ram. Nam. Sam. Savior. Translation by his divine grace makes you bhaktived on the Saiyan Prabhupāda. All the rules and regulations apply equally to the householder and the sannyāsī, the member of the renounced order of life. The Grihasta, however, is given permission by the spiritual master to indulge in sex during the period favorable for appropriation. Would someone like to leave the purport?

It is sometimes misunderstood that a grihastha, a householder, is permitted to indulge in sex at any time. This is a wrong conception of Grihasta life in spiritual life. Whether one is Grihasta, vanaprastha, sanyasi, or brahmachari, everyone is under the control of the spiritual master. For brahmacharis and sannyasis there are strong restrictions on sexual indulgence. Similarly, there are strong restrictions for grihasthas. Grihasthas are should indulge in sex life only in accordance with the order of the guru. Therefore, it is mentioned here that one must follow the orders of the spiritual master Guru Vrittirikalpainam. When the spiritual master orders, the Grihasta may accept sex life. This is confirmed in Bhagavad Gītā 7:11 Dharma nib viruda usmi. Indulgence in sex life without disobedience to the religious rules and regulations constitutes a religious principle.

The Grihasta is allowed to indulge in sex life during the period favorable for procreation and in accordance with the spiritual master’s order. If the spiritual master’s orders allow a grihastha to engage in sex life at a particular time, then the Grihasta may also do so. Otherwise, if a spiritual master orders against it, the Grihasta should abstain. The Grihasta must obtain permission from a spiritual master to observe the ritualistic ceremony of Garbardhan saṁskāra. Then he may approach his wife to beget children. Otherwise not a Brahma generally remains a Brahmachari throughout his entire life. But although some Brahmanas become grihastas and indulge in sex life, they do so under the complete control of the spiritual master. The Kshatriya is allowed to marry more than one wife, but this also must be in accordance with the instructions of the spiritual master.

It is not that because one is a Grihasta, he may marry as many times as he likes and indulge in sex life as he likes. This is not spiritual life. In spiritual life one must conduct one’s whole life under the guidance of a guru. Only one who executes his spiritual life under the direction of the spiritual master can achieve the mercy of Kṛṣṇa Yasya Prasada Bhagavak Prasada. If one desires to advance in spiritual life, but he acts whimsically, not following the orders of the spiritual master, he has no shelter. Yasya Prasada Nagatika Topi without the spiritual master’s order, even the Grihasta should not indulge in sex life.

Swami Translation Prayer for it to the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 7th Canto 12th Chapter Text 11 in the matter of the perfect society, four spiritual classes. So here the standard of how someone can lead a perfectly spiritual life. In all the Ashrams is being explained. How to practice the spiritual life while with him in Rihasta Ashram is a very important factor. Many people, most people think that even in the Vedic culture that okay, first 25 years is for student, next 25 as a grihastha is like totally unrestricted sense gratification. Then the next 25 you retire and then the last 25 we’re going to take six. That’s what the concept is of the Ashrams. But of course most people don’t live that long. But in this way, if one were to die while in that Rihasta ashram, then they would probably have taken another birth.

So here how somebody can be completely in spiritual standard while being Rihasta so that one is also assured to give back to Gandhi even as a Grihasta. Normally the Mayavadis, like the Shankara Acharya school, they say that if you want to get liberation, you have to be a Sannyāsī. But Here it’s possible in 19 in the Vaishnava tradition, Rehashas are also going back to Ganas. They don’t have to take Sannyas. I was preaching in South America and one time there was at the end of the class there was like a Darshan period of people came up to see me and the room I was in was filled with people. One Christian priest was there with the white collar and everything. And then he said that he wanted to speak to me in private. He said, you are a guru, I am also guru.

I want to speak to you guru to guru, Private. So in that class there was some discussion about this topic, about the Grihasta Brahmacharya and how I believe in spiritual Grihasta. Like so after everybody left the room, I said, okay, well, I will speak with you in private for some time. So when everybody left the room, then he said, actually say, I am a Protestant priest. So I married, but we never. No, it’s really how to lead a spiritual family life. There’s no such specific guideline in Christianity. So I wanted to know more about this and I explained the concept and then of having relations for procreation and regulating and so on. So then he appreciated that after we let everybody else back in the room and he started cutting his profile.

After some months, maybe four or five months, I came back to that same city. And then again he came to the class this time again he said, I want to speak to guru. So then I have to let everybody out of the room again and closed the door. And he was there. And he looked around, Oli was there and he said, while I was practicing what you advised, and I found I am also now chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa. And he pulled out from behind his white collar Tulsi Neki. But I can’t let anybody else know. He’s like, That was pretty interesting. I remember I was once in Miami airport when were having. This topic, of course, is very sensitive because of course, in the material world, sex life is one of the main occupations everybody is concerned about, especially in the modern era.

And remember, I was just talking with one looking for American Airlines, and he said, what’s your concept about married life? So I explained, I heard that you people restrict your sex life. But we in Christianity, Jesus Christ said that once you’re married, you can have unremitted sex. I said,  will you show me where it says Henry? No. This is what we’re told. Of course, if somebody’s married, it’s not a big sin having relations. But then also there’s no guarantee. One gets back to Gandhi in that condition. It’s not sinful, particularly for grihasis to have relations. If one really wants to maintain a high spiritual standard, then it’s important to control this sex drive.

Because otherwise one just becomes exceedingly attached to the whole physical situation where if one’s regulated and what’s doing for Kṛṣṇa specifically, that even sex life for the Grihasta is a devotional service and it’s not an obstacle at all. So this is. Most people, they don’t even consider that they’re not the body. And they don’t consider that there is a higher purpose to life. Actually, if somebody is fully engaged in devotional service, then they’re quite satisfied and they can survive with a lot less sex even as. And this way they can go through the experience. What is this material life? What is the material happiness? At the same time, they can maintain their balance and fix their spiritual standards. The most important factor here though, is that everything we do is regulated by the spiritual master.

If we’re doing things under the order of God, Sadhu, Shastra and guru, in this way, we’re safe, we’re protected. Even like Kṛṣṇa in the 12th chapter, Bhagavad Gītā, he also gives like different levels. First he says, best thing is to fully focus yourself on me. The next best is to practice regulated devotional service. Can’t do that. It will work for me. If you can’t do that, be charitable. So give different degrees of devotional or spiritual activities. It’s not that if somebody can’t practice the highest level and they should just not practice anything and go to the next level, the best level that they can attain. I know Śrīla Prabhupāda came to the west because so many young people came to him. They were living together, they weren’t even married. So it was a big thing for Prabhupāda just to get people to get married.

There’s so many couples nowadays that they don’t bother to get married. They just have their partners and either marriage. For them, it’s like a big austerity. We’re in a position. We’re in a situation now where the society has become very far from a spiritual orientation or even a religious orientation. So much of a Prabhupāda. He was gradually and situating ways to bring the devotees, aspiring devotees, up to a spiritual standard. By the guidance of a spiritual master. Then one can be gradually elevated. Says the guru is sure rejected disciple. So even if the disciple is not able to follow perfectly, then rather the disciples should be guided how to come up to the standard. There was, I think, the sixth canta of Bhāgavatam, or was it the eighth? What describes about different manus and Swayambhuva Manu?

He did tapasya for a hundred years in order to have good children. Of course he lived a longer lifespan. But the idea was that he wanted to get a proper wife and he wanted to get a proper family because he wanted children that could keep up with the traditions and in the future also be capable of being manus, of being universal controllers and be able to maintain the religious principles. This idea of spiritual family planning, what we have to do to some austerity in order to have better children. This whole concept hasn’t really been thought about in the west, that the consciousness we have or that the Vihasas have, when we have relations, produces a type of progeny in order to have very good children. It’s not necessarily an accident, it’s a special blessing.

So these grapes, we find them in the bhāgavata, many examples where, like the pachetas, where kaja mamuni, they were performing tapasya just in order to get a good wife. Sometimes people take it for granted, getting a good wife, a good husband, having children. It’s actually to get a good spouse. It’s a very big blessing. Bhakti Nantucker was asked, what’s the single most important thing for Vihasta to make progress and to peaceful, progressive Grihasta life. And his reply was, the mate, the spouse. Having a good Kṛṣṇa conscious spouse, life partner, is the most important thing. Because grihastha life, it’s a partnership, it’s a cooperation. As a Brahmacharya sannyāsī, you sink or swim, you’re on your own. You take association, you take guidance from others. This supports us. But whether you make it or break, it depends on yourself.

But to have a successful Grihasta life, it takes two. So they need to have a similar mentality, they need to have similar tastes, they need to have similar goals in their Kṛṣṇa consciousness. The most important fact is that they both can’t be in the same Kṛṣṇa conscious level. So that they both committed to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Then they can make a quick, smooth progress while on the behalf of ashram. If one is draining, of course, the other can still make progress. But the ride  will be bumpy. Sometimes you have to make the best use of a bad bargain. What, you’re out of marriage, what can you do? And it’s just that it’s going to be more of a test.

I know that when people come later and one couple is one member of the family is Kṛṣṇa conscious, very enthusiastic, and the other is kind of dragging or not so enthusiastic, you know, they always come and say, please bless my husband, or my wife is Kṛṣṇa conscious. And they take some guidance. Recently there was. I was in a rath yātrā in the Middle east. They had an indoor rath yātrā. And there was a lady who’s been under shelter for a long time. But she’s been hesitant to take initiation because her husband wasn’t Kṛṣṇa conscious yet. He was favorable, but he was not interested really at all personally. But somehow in the past year he mellowed out a lot and became more interested. One of the turning points is that they Asked him to play in a drama.

And by playing in a drama and associating with the other devotees, making some friendships and getting to know the other devotees, he started to change. And he started by association to Chand Hare Kṛṣṇa. And he was, he played a good part in the drama, wasn’t very hard part, but he had to play the husband of his wife. It was eight of Kali playing and the Kali and Papa Singh were sending different rikus, different vices to attack this family. So they’re going through all the different attacks, being kicked around by the different moats, the different lust, anger, greed, illusions, until finally they start to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa. And then the messengers, the agents of Kali were not able to influence them anymore. Then the kīrtana in the house, one by one started to drive away all these. But like that, even india one Nabhad.

I remember how the wife said that the husband is totally against, won’t even let her come to the Naaman meetings, won’t let her go to a temple. He’s like really negative so much. But she was a very faithful housewife. So every day she would feed him prasad and every day she prayed to Kṛṣṇa for him. Somehow over period of one year, by taking prasadam after years said, you know, maybe the Hare Kṛṣṇa is not so bad. So I have seen this kind of undercover agents gradually purify the spouses. So I guess easier for the wife in one sense because she does the cooking. But see that work with husbands also it’s a little more unless they do the cooking, how to bring sweets home from the temple or something.

So if both are Kṛṣṇa conscious, then actually it’s a lot easier to practice Kṛṣṇa consciousness on a very high level. A level that’s being discussed here is someone who really wants to get back to Gandhi in this lifetime. Someone who’s a full on practicing Bhakti Yoga. Sometimes we talk about this level to brand new people just kind of coming into the association and it’s really too much for them to comprehend they’re not ready for this level. This is a very advanced level for somebody’s fully above the modes of nature there and the Guna Tita platform by practicing everything for Kṛṣṇa. So when we preach to brand new people just coming out of the material world, then really have to work in a gradual get them a chant, get them to develop an attachment for Kṛṣṇa if we get too heavy.

I just heard about family. They were chanting and somewhat favorable. But some devotee went there and really heavied him out and preached how you got to give up this and that and practice on this level. And he had to immediately stop worshipping, stop, throw all the pictures of the bagels up in the altar. And this kind of attacked everything they were doing and just really smashed them. So then the wife says, enough, forget it. Took her bean bag, everything, donated it to somebody else and said, I’d have it finished. So the guy just totally burned them off, one shot. See, it’s not like we want to preach to people. Such a heavy weight, that’s like all or nothing. And then they opt for the nothing.

Perhaps trying to build up their attachment to Kṛṣṇa so that when they actually feel so much happiness by serving and chanting higher Kṛṣṇa that they want to preserve that happiness. Preserve the higher taste. Sarupa Goswami heal. He recommends that Yena tena Prakarayena Kṛṣṇa Mahmi Vasudev. First step is scheduled by any means attached to Kṛṣṇa. Once someone’s developed an attachment for Kṛṣṇa, taste for devotional service, then you start to introduce more and more the rules. If you put in a lot of rules before somebody’s developed attention, they’re not going to understand why they should do that. Everybody wants to be happy. So they have to kind of reorient their equation, their perspective. What is happiness?

Once people start to get happy by serving Kṛṣṇa, then it makes perfect sense that then you start to control and regulate your material things so you don’t obstruct that happiness. But until somebody tasted that happiness, if you just start smashing all their existing happiness inside without giving any alternative, then they feel intimidated. Things have to also be explained in a positive way. Why? Because it’s not so difficult to explain why not to take drugs or why not to eat meat. These things can be explained. It should be done in a positive way that people can accept it. Chaitanya Mahāprabhu, of course he had his massive kirtans. Lord Nityānanda Prabhu came up from Jagannath Purī and he continued the Sankirtan movement in Bengal. And the first thing he did was he just had a big kīrtana.

It was a man stepped in kīrtana that went on in Prādhānati for three months, day and night. And everybody just came and joined the kīrtana. There wasn’t even a stop for class. They just kept chanting and everybody came and joined the kīrtana. And people were getting so much ecstasy from the kīrtana that they just became totally convinced that this is where it’s at. Sometimes when we do that, these festivals and go, I mean, I Saw the festival like you heard you’re going to go to this confest. I don’t know exactly what it’s like there, but we do a festival, a music festival in Russia called. I told about this sometimes the Grushinski festival where bhakti bringing Rabindra Maharaj, he does the name in kīrtana.

I back up a little bit and they charge chanting 9 or 10 o’ clock at night and go till 4 or 5 in the morning, 10 mangalaki and go to sleep. But they have about 5, 10,000 people chanting and dancing with them all night. And many of these people, they just walk off the street with a walk off the festival grounds and just join the kīrtana. And I had even a couple come up to me the next day and ask, well, we never felt happier in our life. What is it? We were singing what is this? Hare Kṛṣṇa. Hare Kṛṣṇa mean what is this? They were me there feeling so happy, chanting. But I never felt happy in their life. They didn’t even have a clue what it was they were singing.

It wasn’t that they knew that it was religion, they just knew that these people are singing. And we joined in this nice singing and dancing and they felt different after that. So I guess people, they start to even have a little bit of experience. That’s something unique in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Most of this first you believe, then you practice. But here, even if you don’t believe, if you practice, you get a taste and then after the taste you believe. You find that people come this by taking prasadam just by chanting Hare Kṛṣṇa, by attending a festival, they get a taste for spiritual light. And that taste is what builds up their faith. Once they have the taste, then they can start to present things better.

I remember I heard from some gurukul alumni that they had a reunion in London and they went from the manor one day they went down the Piccadilly Circus, one of the main night spots in London. And most of the gurukul alumni were not dressed in devotee clothes. They just kind of went quick and they were still in their cities, whatever the normal western dress. But they’re good kīrtana singers and they’re good madrango players. A lot of spunk, a lot of life, 10 skirt on, dancing and everything. So somehow all the people there they could relay and they could relate. People dressed in western dress, they seem to be really having a good time and they’re happy and they’re singing and dancing. So a lot of the people join in.

Sometimes when we go, they notice it was A different phenomenon because many times the Hare Kṛṣṇa devoys were writing down dressed in a traditional dress. People kind of just watch. They don’t necessarily join in. But here the people actually said joined in. And there was maybe dozens, if not a hundred people joined in and chanted and danced with them. I remember one time I went on a harinam before the Rath Yātrā in London many years ago. And I just walked a little late. So I kind of caught up and there was all like one hundred and fifty devotees chanting and there was a big crowd of people around. And then one preacher went forward and he just started lecturing and he started saying, we follow the four principles. And here you are, Piccadilly. Everywhere it’s nightclubs, meat restaurants in.

He just yells out our four principles. I don’t know if we could really relate with what he was saying. People one by one started walking away. I think we came off pretty fanatical at that particular moment. So that’s not the way that we preach. We do have a standard like how if you really want to be transcendental, how to do it in all the ashrams, how to be transcendental even while having sex life. There’s a process for doing that, living, pitching to somebody who’s maybe not following any principles at all, has any idea about what Kṛṣṇa consciousness is, what the purpose of human life is. He can either put them on a gradual program, try to find a handle where you can get into them so that they can actually start to understand what you’re talking about.

I know that Satchinman Maharaji was telling me how when he preaches the four principles to young people, then he explains it from a different point of view. He explains the importance of cleanliness and how being clean protects us from disease and how sleeping around with various partners and this kind of illicit sex is very unclean. And that’s the cause of AIDS and venereal disease. So many things. And it’s also conscious wise. We become very unclean. So then he presents it more like from cleanliness, truthfulness, how people gamble, they tend to lie, cheating kind of process. And austerity, self control. And how we get intoxicated, we do crazy things, we say things we don’t really mean, we destroy relationship. So this is trying to present in a more of a constructive way.

And he founded the Germans they could by presenting it in a more of a constructive way rather than just, you know, coming off like, we follow this standard, we’re better than you are. People can’t relate with that too much. So how to reach and people in different environments. That’s what the preacher is trying to do. They’re not trying to just put themselves up. They’re trying to actually help people to get out of their illusion. That’s what the guru is doing with his disciples. So according to the disciple situation, the guru give advice. I know that one time sometimes there was a disciple who told girl, but I am not chanting any rounds, or I chant one day, 16, one leg, two. I just. I am having a lot of trouble with my rounds.

So the problem said, well, if you can’t chant 16 every day, and rather than want 0 one day and 16 the next day, why don’t you at least fix a minimum that you can do every day, and then gradually get yourself steady and then building up again. So here Prabhupāda was telling us, although it’s your vowel, you should come up to 16. But better than doing 0, 16, 2, 16, make an 8, and then build it up again to 16 as quickly as you can. I know there was once, the disciples said, on 250 rounds in the red, the Sikh festival, this, that I felt I got, you know, fell behind in my rounds, what to do. And then Prabhupāda said, well, okay, I will clean. You got a clean slate. Now the back is zero. But from now on, 16 a day.

I saw different times, different kinds. You can’t apply that for everybody. Because the guru, he saw, well, what’s the situation of this particular devotee gives a particular advice. So there’s what’s the general standard for everybody? And then it’s somebody like, if you go to a doctor and you got a condition, you’re sick, the doctor may give you some medicine, some special treatment that doesn’t mean that some for everybody. You can’t just apply it blindly. There’s that example about the student of the veterinarian who was trying to learn how to be a vet. There was a horse was brought in with a big lump in the throat, and the vet took a helmet and smashed it. And then the student said, well, now I know how to cure lumps in the throat. So put a sign that anybody has lumps in the throat.

I can hear it. So people are bringing horses in and just hit it with a hammer. The horse would die. Then, you know, people say, went back to guru, what happened? I mean, I did exactly what you did. He said, not every lump is the same. That particular horse had swallowed a melon, so I had to break the melon. So that he could swallow it was stuck in the throat. But sometimes horses have tumors or there’s some other. And if you get the horse with a tumor, you may kill it. So you have to know what’s actually the problem. So that’s why having a personal spiritual master, we have Disha gurus and then we have Siksha guru. Siksha guru also has a power of attorney to give advice, although he doesn’t give things in contradiction to the Diksha guru.

This way one gets instruction what to do and then they have the ignorance. And the guru is responsible. If he gives an instruction, he has to take the responsibility for. For what happens if the disciple follows? Because sometimes you just ask your different friends, everybody tells you a different opinion. Nobody’s really responsible. You say, well, if I do what you say, you will take me full responsibility. Wait a minute. But being a guru means accepting our responsibility. Because you really care about the person you want to see. You want to help them. At the same time you don’t ask for. Sometimes. The guru wants to be really sure what’s the best thing for someone to do. That’s why it’s important to have the guidance of a spiritual master and to follow accordingly.

And this way when sometimes just like you go to the doctor and it gives you one treatment, but that doesn’t mean that’s the treatment for the rest of existence. Sometimes your condition changes and you adjust the medication. I remember when I was in the hospital after I was attacked in Spain. They had me on intravenous antibiotics for three days. But then they took me off antiviral. It’s not like the medication changes as your condition changes. So the doctor’s always there. Even though I hardly ever saw the doctor. But every day they brought my file up to the doctor. What was my blood pressure, what was the pulse, what was this? That whatever the whole. The nurses came and do all the groundwork and do all the testing and then they give the report to the doctor. Okay, you can stop this medication.

You can start that you can take in mouth of liquid food and start putting on solid. Occasionally, every couple days the doctor comes by for a personal check. But otherwise everything is under the guidance of the doctor. And if something goes wrong, the doctor is the one that’s responsible, not the nurse. Unless the nurse personally double chops the bed or something. The nurse is following the instructions of the doctor. So Prabhupāda said, Kṛṣṇa Kasha is also like a spiritual hospital and the guru is the doctor. But we get also bio support from others. And there’s a lot of training doctors and a lot of assistant doctors that are probably doing more hands on things but they know what the basic standard is.

Sometimes there’s a major decision has to be made, then you have to talk to the guru to know what to do or not. If you’re not sure for most standard routine things and is known what the guru would want in those circumstances, if there’s some special change of life, a situation or a unique situation, then you’re not sure what the guru wants and you should be sure you should check it that way. If we always know that what we’re doing is authorized by Sadhu Shasta guru, then we’re safe and remain on the transcendental platform. So like that we have the devotees who are already determined to get back to Kṛṣṇa this lifetime and they’re following a totally spiritual standard.

Then you have other people that are just new out of the material world trying to help them, even just to get up to the spiritual level. So accordingly you have to preach differently. And oh, I got, I preached to the congregation. Being a congregational minister, being india and many places in the congregation you have people who are all levels, right from zero to full. And maybe if you’re just preaching to the Bodhi’s living in the temple, then it’s a different standard. We have to help people at various levels in their spiritual life, how to get up to the next level and how to maintain where they’re at. So that’s why it’s important in everything we do should be under the guidance of a spiritual master.

So that someone who over a period of time gets to know us and gives us and responsible for whatever guidance, giving guidance according to what he learned from his guru and what the scriptures say. Any questions? Provide an example where people choose making decisions in their own lives to change or not. Ultimately people, I mean people have to make that decision themselves. Once somebody decided to change their life and accepted a spiritual master, then the spiritual master has the right to give advice and to be more proactive. I know we take over the years they have given us various courses, opportunities to take courses. One of the courses was a counselor course. We have Māyā Court, interesting course. We’re adding that to our curriculum. In the congregational preaching pastor program.

We’re setting up a program where devotees can get credits with way through different courses and seminars. And we get enough credits they can be recognized at get some kind of a degree as a pastor for congregational preaching. And so this counselor course, of course one of the things I remember they said was you can’t really counsel somebody unless they ask you to. They have to buy into it. They have to ask you just like maybe it’s another example like Arjuna, Surrender Kṛṣṇa or my guru being someone asked for someone to be counselor. It’s not saying like Satyam is a guru, but to be a mediator or to be someone who maybe not exactly guru, but something a little halfway. The counselor is really helping people to make their decisions on their own. So sometimes what we do is counsel people.

Sometimes that’s the best thing, get them to come to the conclusions. Sometimes depends on the relationship with the devotee. But even to be a counselor, they have to want to hear from you. It’s like a doctor can’t just walk up to people and start giving a treatment. The patient has to go to the doctor, Somebody’s coughing in the airport, you know, looks like you got a disease in the study. So to what degree somebody has asked for help. If somebody’s taking someone as a Siksha guru, that means I want you to give me guidance, what I should do, how I can. If I am taking someone as a Diksha guru, then another level of commitment or someone just. I just want you to just give me some guidance, or I used to do or to counsel me.

Somebody comes and asks questions, then we can reciprocate with that. But if they don’t ask, if they’re not open and we start giving advice. Even in counseling, you don’t really give people advice unless it’s at the very end to the whole life. There’s a lot of listening to them, getting them to see their own situation, kind of bringing things out more clearly so they can see the issues. For some people, that’s really the best thing. So it’s good to go through the adverse little counseling training to know how to. Because counseling them with do’s and don’ts, if you want people to see things for themselves, then there’s ways to do that. Like you’re not supposed to probe too much. You’re not supposed to just give advice right away. You’re supposed to discuss in a particular way. There’s one method of how to do that.

Everything is always a little more than meets the eye. But then sometimes a disciple really just wants the guru to tell what should I do? And if he went into counseling mode and never told him what to do, then that wouldn’t also lead here. So they need to know what’s the standard. Sometimes counseling mode doesn’t work for the guru. He has to tell, well, this is what the scripture says. This is what you have to do. This if you do this is what happens if you do something else. That’s the standard or at least I get Explain clearly what the different repercussions are for different levels of activity. Sometimes if the disciple or the devotee doesn’t relate open up to what the real problem is.

And sometimes going into a counselor mode, just get things without being too intimidating, trying to get the person to hold up a little bit so you can really understand what the issues are. Then if they really want advice, then they may ask you, well, what do you think I should do? Then you can tell them they’re not asking you what you should do. You just tell them, what’s the use if they’re not going to follow it anyway? If they’re not open from that? And to be a pastor, that’s. That’s again an issue. When to counsel, when to guide, when to give an instruction. How to tell whether somebody is ready for an instruction or not. Have you heard enough to really understand what the real problem is?

What if you give an instruction, you haven’t really heard the person out and don’t really know what the problem is and you have misunderstood what the whole problem is and give them an instruction. Psychic doctor who didn’t really diagnose the patient properly and give some medication. How many times has that happened? I mean, I know many doctors, right? And it’s okay, we will give you this, a broad spectrum antibiotic. You know, we will give you this. Turns out you have something totally different. Oh, you must have malaria. Do a blood test. At one time they gave me the whole malaria medicine and it turned out they had a urinary infection. Sometimes it can be serious. There’s one disciple, one of my godbrothers, I forget his name in Canada, and he had a tumor. He had a.

He had a blood clot in his jugular vein or one of his arteries or veins. And they saw it and they didn’t know that. And they thought that he was feeling dizzy because of lack of blood and they gave him a blood infusion. But because of the blood clot, it created a flooding of blood in his brain, created paralysis. Later, one intern felt and saw the lump in his veins and actually there’s a blood clot which is blocking the flow from leaving the vein. And then they salvage it for the rest of his life. He’s lost the use of one, his right arm and his leg. I mean, it’s like. Not functioning. Like a stroke type of thing, like semi paralyzed. So we don’t want to. That’s where it’s important to listen and be sure you know what’s the real situation.

For making this giving instruction specific. There’s no use of telling a disciple to do something. If they can’t do it, Then they will just tell Prabhupāda he didn’t give many disciples personal instructions. He gave like initiation, general instruction. He mentioned that if the guru gives a personal instruction, the disciple doesn’t do it. Then that’s a guru Apara third defense of the holy name. So you don’t want to give an instruction as you can decide to do it. Principles and as you. The class was about not to have relation, other appropriation and an aspiring view. Disciple has to promise to his guru before taking initiation that he  will follow these. And we also know that this is a quite a high standard. Should a disciple work up to that standard before request you?

Well, Sabah here, that said, everything that the disciple does under the guidance under the instruction of the guru so they can discuss that issue with the spiritual master. We’re supposed to avoid breaking those principles. And again, there’s different degrees of breaking a principle. I remember I was sitting in the room on Sir Śrīla Prabhravad and there was this disciple who came in. He had gone to a prostitute. Prophet said, why didn’t you go to a prostitute? You’re a married man, why did you go to a prostitute? They said, well, I am married, but with my wife I can only have sex with procreation. So I couldn’t. Therefore I went outside. Brahma said, well, it’s sinful to go to a prostitute, but it’s not specifically sinful. To have relations with your wife may not be devotional service. So we didn’t say that.

I am just saying adding that it’s not necessarily devotional service. To have relations not for children, but to have illicit sex with a prostitute, that’s sinful is deadly dangers with all these aries for the wife too later. So those dangers may have AIDS here. But the Prabhupāda said, you know, it would have been better to have relation with your wife even if it wasn’t for prophet creation, than to go to a prostitute. This is so this is the standard. Also recently the TVC and the deputy, they published a guideline for behavior. What quoting something? Prabhupāda san did Shachari for this standard. And it’s understood that I don’t want to quote it just quite a long paragraph. I just memorized it. But you could see that the basic gist of it was that you tried to come to this particular standard.

And even if in duit southwards a few lapses through challenges. It’s understood it may take a little practice to get perfect in this situation. It is a period of adjustment. But if you don’t give the standard, then there’s nothing to work for. Like that it’s really a personal thing. Maybe for one person they could actually do it and they don’t. They should really consult with the guru on what is practical for them, what they can do, how they come up to this standard. But I think specifically. If one’s pretty close to following the standard and usually take initiation. And avoid bringing people in falling. It’s pretty difficult. A lot of emotional issues here at play. Just like in the Rupadeshamrita it says Niyamagraha not whimsically giving up a regulation and not being over thanato. This is a kind of a paradise.

Have a very high standard at the same time. And the practical implementation tends to happen in a more gradual way. Some people do it fully right from the very beginning. And some people a little adjustment period takes some practice to get it done. Well, I think he means that the wives a lot. It says Kshatriyas. Yeah. Previously the kings or Kshatriyas, if a woman approached them for marriage make could accept more than one wife. If they had begun to do so. They even had the permission of their guru. They had the capacity to maintain. They had to give a separate household for each wife. The idea was that sometimes in some societies there’s more women than men society. So everybody gets a husband. Those people who are capable. Usually it was the Kshatriyas.

If the wife wanted and if they could maintain and they had the permission of the guru, then they could legally have more than one wife. Of course, now in modern society it’s not in Islam they allow four wives. No, legally four. So far as I know the Quran, whatever says four. If they want more, then they do Talaq. Talaq divorce one way, but it’s not. But at one time for their ideas that they should only have sex for technically they have the same standard. I mean, one mullah was telling me what can we do? We can only have sex for children. So when our wife is pregnant, how we can remain celibate for so long with his other wife. But there’s many Mohammedans that don’t have more than one life. You have to Also be able to maintain.

They have their own standard of how to do that. But it also worked the other way. There were that like Draupadi, she had five husbands. We’re not like promoting that, but that was. We can’t hide the historical existed in society. Well, yeah, because we didn’t. I think Prabhupāda. There were reasons for not accepting. Apart from the fact that it was illegal. The other factor was whether people could maintain their consciousness in that environment. Socially, I don’t want to really belabor the point that it’s really academic. It’s not something we’re practicing. But socially, you can see that. If all the parties are  willing. It’s like sometimes I had a situation where india, kind of where in the village, it’s kind of outside the wall. They have their own thing going on. There was a lady who was married and she couldn’t.

For one reason or another, she couldn’t have any children in the village. Children are like a necessary reality that you need for farming and for everything. So she suggested to her husband that he take another wife. So she married again, but he didn’t divorce her. He just maintained both of them. And so they came for initiation, my husband and my two wives. So sometimes to some degree this means swan. And maybe the real rural areas of India and Bangladesh, in these places, they don’t register their marriages, they don’t register their births, they don’t register deaths. I don’t think it’s registered that someone gets murdered. But anyway, they’re pretty. They’re pretty content about the whole thing. So in certain situations, certain cultures, it is acceptable. But where we’re living in the modern, in this Western world, don’t think it’s acceptable.

Although there’s a lot of women who are abandoned, maybe. Where if the option was there that the husband could maintain, you know, anyway the husband has to pay. What do you call maintenance, alimony. Having that option. I could see some social event to the people who are living. As I said, it’s more of a. At this point, it’s an academic. But in Asia, I think a lot of people having children is a major point. If the wife can’t have children and then they get divorced for that reason, it’s a big burden on society and on her. So there are people that have that kind of orientation. But that’s a whole other topic. That’s the point here that was brought up. Sometimes I ride in like Gulf Airways or Emirates Airways, and the husband comes in with the four wives and the 16 kids.

They take up a whole section of the airplane stack of passports like this. They actually could move over because they’re like why you don’t want to sit together? Totally different culture. But they seem. They don’t seem to be adjust to it. So it’s working for some people. I think we really went over Yuga. So I am here for your service. Service of Dragonite. Beautiful outfits, rising sun