20030127 Bhagavad-gītā 13.8-12

(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 January 27, 2003 – in Bangalore, India. The lecture begins with a reading from the Bhagavad-gītā 13.8-12.

Bhagavad-gītā 13.8-12

amānitvam adambhitvam
ahiṁsā kṣāntir ārjavam
ācāryopāsanaṁ śaucaṁ
sthairyam ātma-vinigrahaḥ

indriyārtheṣu vairāgyam
anahaṅkāra eva ca
janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-
duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam

asaktir anabhiṣvaṅgaḥ
putra-dāra-gṛhādiṣu
nityaṁ ca sama-cittatvam
iṣṭāniṣṭopapattiṣu

mayi cānanya-yogena
bhaktir avyabhicāriṇī
vivikta-deśa-sevitvam
aratir jana-saṁsadi

adhyātma-jñāna-nityatvaṁ
tattva-jñānārtha-darśanam
etaj jñānam iti proktam
ajñānaṁ yad ato ‘nyathā

Translation by His Divine Grace: Humility; pridelessness; nonviolence; tolerance; simplicity; approaching a bona fide spiritual master; cleanliness; steadiness; self-control; renunciation of the objects of sense gratification; absence of false ego; the perception of the evil of birth, death, old age and disease; detachment; freedom from entanglement with children, wife, home and the rest; even-mindedness amid pleasant and unpleasant events; constant and unalloyed devotion to Me; aspiring to live in a solitary place; detachment from the general mass of people; accepting the importance of self-realization; and philosophical search for the Absolute Truth—all these I declare to be knowledge, and besides this whatever there may be is ignorance.

Purport by His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda: this process of knowledge is sometimes misunderstood by less intelligent men as being the interaction of the field of activity. Actually this is the real process of knowledge. It’s mentioned here in this verse. If one accepts this process, then the possibility of approaching the absolute truth exists. This is not the interaction of the 24 elements as described before. This is actually the means to get out of the entanglement of those elements. The embodied soul is entrapped by the body which is the casing made of the 24 elements, and the process of knowledge as described here is the means to get out of it. Of all the descriptions of the process of knowledge, the most important point is described in the first line of the 11^th verse.

Bakir Abya Vicharini the process of knowledge terminates in unalloyed devotional service to the Lord. Shabbat does not approach or is not able to approach the transcendental service of the Lord, then the other 19 items are of no particular value. But if one takes to devotional service in full Kṛṣṇa consciousness, the other 19 items automatically develop within you. As stated in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, 5^th Canto 18^th Chapter 12, Verse Yes Shasti Bhaktiya Bhagavati Akinchanasavaygunai Satra Samasade Surah all the good qualities of knowledge develop in one who has attained the stage of devotional service. The principle of accepting as spiritual master, as mentioned in the eighth verse, is essential even for one who takes to devotional service. It is most important. Transcendental life begins when one accepts a bona fide spiritual master.

The supreme personality of Gandha Śrī Kṛṣṇa clearly states here that this process of knowledge is the actual path. Anything speculated beyond this is nonsense. The Prabhupāda analyzes each sound. These qualities. There are so many Gītā Gyana Yagyas held in South India. Many people like to pride themselves of being Gyanis. Here he touched Ganum. If he broke down, this is Ganum. These 20 points are Ganon. So all the Gana Gandhiyas which don’t terminate in Bhakti. According to Kṛṣṇa, according to the speaker of the Bhagavad Gītā. Because he’s saying that ultimately everything should culminate in constant and unalloyed devotion to him. And that’s the last thing that the Gītā Ganayya gives to try to tell people you are God. And if you’re God, then there’s no meaning of devotion. Devotion for myself. I met once one of them, Shankara Sapuri.

But he had Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa deities. And I went for another purpose. But Prabhupāda sent me to Purī to do something. And in my quest to fulfill Prabhupāda’s instruction, I had to meet the Purī Sankar charity. So after discussing with him then, I was unsuccessful in achieving what I was supposed to get. Anyway, I questioned him that so you worship Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa? Because I heard that Prabhupāda said actually the Gyanis, it’s a very dry process with Kannada Yoga, so that they worship Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa to get some little juice. So I asked, so you worship Rahm Kṛṣṇa. But then he surprised me. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but it was coming from him. But he said, I am Rādhā Kṛṣṇa. I am worshipping myself. Then I was. Amazed at his statement and I said, well, but you’re growing old.

In Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa are eternally young. They’re Nava Yogana. But you’re, you know, old and wrinkled. He said, this is my Leela. That Leela, everyone is doing that. So this Leela, birth, death, old age, disease. This is Leela and everyone, it’s not Leela. It’s just a part of mature life to remain youthful. Like Kṛṣṇa was youthful. Even when he was 120 years old, exposed to Bhagavad Gītā, he still looked like a young man, like 20 years old or so. Probably 24 or something. So that’s Leela. That’s something unusual. So the Gyanis who want to think that they are gods, it’s not their real knowledge. Dual knowledge  will lead us to understanding the actual position of Kṛṣṇa. So here are so many good qualities. Humility. Many times people ask, what does it mean to be humble? How can I be humble?

So Draubard explains, humility means that One should not be anxious to have the satisfaction of being honored by others. The material conception of life makes us very eager to receive honor from others. But from the point of view of a man in perfect knowledge who knows that he is not this body, anything, honor or dishonor pertaining to this body is useless. One should not be hankering after this material deception. People are very anxious to be famous for their religion. And consequently sometimes it is found that without understanding the principles of religion, one enters into some group which is not actually following religious principles and then wants to advertise himself. As a religious mentor. As for actual advancement in spiritual science, one should have a test to see how far he is progressing. We can judge by these items. Something interesting just happened.

I heard a few days ago where two devotees met our President Vandya Dr. And they offered him some prasada. Apparently he and he said are you religious or spiritual? And then they said spiritual. Then he accepted the prasad. Apparently he also got recently to Magua Gītā and he reads that also money. The difference between spiritual. Religious people are driving jet planes into high rise buildings thinking that they’re religious. All kinds of crazy things go on in the name of religion. And therefore people, many young people, many educated people for them, like in the west, when you preach to the Western students and youth, the things you want to avoid saying are religion, God. Name two. There’s a few others.

But those are like forbidden words almost because so much negativity has been created because of a lack of real understanding of the spiritual purpose to religion. In fact, in the beginning of the Kṛṣṇa Conscious movement, people wondered why did Prabhupāda say Supreme Personality of Gandhi? Why didn’t you just say God? Now some preachers told me that in the west supreme personality and Godhead is a good word because nobody heard it before. So people are more open to that. But God has got a bad name right now for many people. For many people. So this is the situation that we’re working with in the world. Because people don’t know what the actual principles of religion are. Actually these principles mentioned by Kṛṣṇa, all. Very brave and thoughtful people. They could appreciate these principles. Lord Chaitanya appeared important.

Everybody in Avantree India was very religious but hardly anybody was spiritual. They were performing religion simply for the sake of name, fame or maybe some piety, some kind of good karmas, some material benefits. And a lot of things were speculated. People wanted to be known that they’re very religious. So they would have big festivals when they were marrying their daughters. And if they were a wealthy family that was a big thing to have a very big show, giving your daughter away in marriage. That proved that you are a very religious person. So it would be a competition. Who could have the biggest witness to show how religious you were? Nothing to do with spirituality or real religion. Real religion means to please the Supreme Lord. That wasn’t the intention.

Then when people ran out of daughters to marry off, they were being defeated by the other party. They got desperate. So what they started to do is then they married. They had dolls made of Shiva and Pārvatī and they had Shiva Pārvatī marriage. Then somebody else thought that, I am going to do something more creative. And then he married a male and a female dog. Someone else married a male and a female cat, all in name of religion. So great devotees like Shivas Thakwa and Advaita Acharya. What’s going on here? What does any of this have to do with religion? What does it have to do with spirituality? What does it do with. It’s simply people, you know, speculating things just to show up something. There’s nothing to do with Shastra, nothing to do with religion, really.

But it’s all in a facade, in a presentation that this is religion. So things have been going on like that. That’s why they thought that we want to bring Mojitanya down to establish what is real spirituality, to deliver these people with real love of Kṛṣṇa, which is the real purpose of Kombucha. Actually, Prabhupāda said we respect all religions. If they develop love for God and people, just actual criteria. I was talking once one Christian priest came to visit us in my uncle from Caroline. Then I mentioned how in the Bible it says the first commandment is to love the Lord thy God with all your heart and soul and mind. And he said, well, I don’t think that’s. I am not so much. He didn’t like that. That was the first command, but he didn’t like it. He said, I like the second.

He said, it’s just as good as the first. Love your neighbour like you love yourself. You’d be surprised if there are many priests and different religions who are basically atheists. They do it because they somehow got a job doing that, or they like the social work or they like the salary or they like the hours or something. Don’t necessarily believe in God. Many priests are very sincere and do believe. I am not saying anyone, but there are some people. It’s quite amazing. As you would expect, religionists would be preaching about God. They would believe him bhatti. Siddhānta Saraswati Taqua. He describes story about a priest in a Hindu temple who got a job as a priest because he couldn’t find any other employment. So because he was born in a Brahmin family, took up the job as a priest, but actually he was an atheist.

So somebody gave some peanuts to the temple and this priest loved peanuts, but they were in the shell. So then he closed the door of the temple and didn’t have any other way to crack the nuts. He took the shali gram sheila off the altar and started loosing the stone sheila to break the nuts. And the owner of the temple came to see the delis and heard a smashing and he looked through the window and then he saw that he took the worshipable shalingram nārāyaṇa off the altar, was breaking amina. Then he obviously completely went berserk and started shouting, you Pasandi, you atheist, you rational. Through the priest hour. In Bengali this is called Shaligram Diya Vadambana. And Bhakti Siddhartha, Vishnu Pasha, Bhakti Siddhartha, Sarasvi Thakur.

He used to say, anybody who’s using religion or using Kṛṣṇa’s property for their own personal sense gratification, they’re also just like this priest who’s breaking kemats with the shalom ram. If you found somebody trying to take Kṛṣṇa’s paraphernalia or Kṛṣṇa can use it for themselves and he would say, what is this Shalingam Piya Vadhana Bhanga breaking peanuts with the shaling ram. So like that problem is there in the west. It’s same as that. We have charlatan preachers who put on big shows. They have actually staff performers who come up and get healed with crutches and things. That way they get people to believe in them and then they get big donations, become billionaires. Many have been exposed. Now recently in the west there’s a new group where people are accusing of being another commercial friend.

The leader of this group claims that he was kidnapped by a flying saucer and he was taken into some heavenly realm where he met Jesus, Muhammad and Buddha. And then he was given a very wonderful sexual experience also. And so he had the best of everything, spiritual and material. And then he was revealed that all human beings are clones of extraterrestrials. And so he started a new religion called something like rhinism Rayas railist rails. And they’re the ones who are doing this cloning that’s in the newspapers that they claim to have clones and they give some people. One person lost his son and he wants, you know, young son. He was very a cat. So he paid millions of dollars to have a clone made of the fingernail from his son. He had a fingernail left.

So from that they claimed they could make a clone so he could get a duplicate of his son. In this religion they’re claiming that they want to do is in this way, if you make a clone of yourself, then you can eventually, when science develops further, you can download your memory from your brain into the brain of your clone. And that way you  will live on and you  will have eternal life by this form of reincarnation. Can you believe it? There are people, 50,000 followers on a big webpage and many people are giving them money and things. What insanity is going on in the world. I was just thinking how many people get bewildered because they don’t know what is reincarnation? We know that everybody has its own individual self.

And so when someone is events that there may be identical twins like we have in Māyāpur, Janani Vas and Pankajandri. And they’re identical twins. And if you don’t know them, I mean, they just look the same. You can’t tell exactly by their appearance. You have to feel their vibration to know who’s who because they have different vibrations, they’re two different people, but their physique is very much the same. So we know that even if a person made the identical clone have an identical physique of the other person, that they have a different soul in their body with a different karma, a different consciousness. So they’re going to face all kinds of unforeseen problems when these people are not going to cooperate and start suing them. Why did you know all this? They want to really enslave these clones in some way.

Actually to fulfill their own intention. But they have their own life and they have their own desire. Even if they’re able to succeed in cloning somebody’s body. So all this is going on. They registered in some Panji as a religion. This is their religion. So people can have a religion based on any kind of asana, any speculation, any flying saucers, I met Buddha and the clouds and anything. And these people. There’s no standard. What is religion in the world today? Religion should be based on what’s revealed by God, not revealed by some flying sauce, but actually what’s revealed to the Shastrans. Sakshavati Dharma, Saksha Bhagavad Pranitam Dharma is what is revealed by the supreme personality of God. So Prabhupāda wanted us to be Madhya Varacharis, to be preachers. And that means we have to be able to discriminate what is real religion, what isn’t.

We have to be able to preach on the basis of Bhagavad Gītā to people to explain to them what is actual spirituality, what is religion, what is the purpose of religion? The ultimate purpose of religion is spirituality is Kṛṣṇa. Consciousness. Being a feature means you have to be able to discriminate all these things to be able to analyze and find out what else that we fixed. What are the good points to be able to see. Like Kṛṣṇa, he said 20 things. These 20 things are gana. Apart from this is Agena. If you want to know what is gana, what is agana? Here we have our criteria to judge. Somebody is doing something because they want to. Obviously they have pride. They want to pridelessly want to get name and fame. They’re just doing it for their own image building. This is ignorant.

Shamini in real knowledge knows that ultimately Kṛṣṇa, the supreme personality of Gandhi. These are all powerful. He has all intelligence. At best we can be reflections of the supreme Word. We can be transparent deviant, where his potency can go through us. Whether somebody individually feels that they’re very great on the basis of their bodies, their mind, it’s a. It’s a diversion from the absolute truth. But in this modern world, This is what the criteria who has the bigger car, who has the bigger house, who has the bigger name, who has more pictures posing with ministers and prime ministers and presidents, things like who’s got more medals on their chest. Everything to help the material world is so much based on this name, fame, prestige, very much in the world of passion, a defensive name.

And people get motivated by that and they strive to achieve goals for that purpose. The body tries to achieve higher goals to please the Lord. That’s actually a motivation of love, to do something. Because we’re grateful for all the things that Kṛṣṇa has given us and we want to reciprocate with that. We want to do something in our own humble way to express our gratitude to Guru and Kṛṣṇa. We want to serve them. Gratitude is one of the basic qualities of a spiritual person. We’re grateful. There’s a saying that there’s a prized chitter for all offenses, but for any magnitude there’s no atonement. So we can always be grateful for the. This is really the quality of devoting. They Matsura, they don’t have any sin. They’re grateful for whatever help they get, Prabhupāda would appreciate any little help that someone would give.

Spark is my appreciation. Lord Chaitanya was such a powerful creature because of his extreme humility. When he met the Mayavadis and Banaras and they were all the Sannyasis were seated in the hall invited by this Ramana from Maharashtra. Then at that time, Loy Chaitanya said. And in those days, the Sannyasis would either go with these, the Karams or barefoot shed the doorway. Naturally, the Vihasta would wash the feet of the visiting Sannyāsī. So the whole doorway was filled with water. There was not maybe hundred or more Sanyatis present. The Lord Shaitan came and he sat down in that water. Who sits in that water? So the Sannyasis are amazed that I said, what are you doing sitting in that dirty place? And Lord, she said, no. Because you see, you’re already exalted Sannyasis. And I am a very insignificant Sannyāsī.

I am a lower standard Sannyāsī than you. Because you’re Saraswatis and Puris. And I am a Bharati. So I  will sit here. It’s okay. I think our Lord Chaitani could sometimes be so humble that it was just. People would become amazed by that. Here’s the great Acharya and he’s so humble. And then they forgot what first they picked him by the hand and brought him in the midst and said, no, sit here amongst them. This way, by humility you have center stage. Without. Rūpa and Sabata, they were so humble. For the Prime Minister and the finance minister of one of the most powerful empires of India at that time, the whole of Panchamot under the Hussein Shah in those days, prime minister was sent for four years. He could be there for life. He had the favor of the emperor and they were favored.

They came to Lord Chaitanya and they put a straw in their teeth and they bowed down with a straw in their mouth. Describing how they were so fallen and so unqualified and just begging for. Lord Chaitanya. He said, stop it. You’re breaking my heart with this humility. How many prime ministers, you know, crawling on the ground with a straw in the street to get a blessing from a Sannyāsī. Not a material blessing, a spiritual blessing. I mean, someone might crawl, get re elected or something. But they wanted spirit. They wanted a blessing of Kṛṣṇa Tantras. We can see these great qualities. Prahlad was offered anything he wanted by singing that you could do anything you Want? He said, don’t tempt me. I come from the demon family. All I want is to serve you. And then he thought something to benefit his father.

Even his father tried to kill him. Still he felt some kind of gratitude to some degree for his father praying to Lord Mirza and Machinga Day to forgive him. We know his father was a child of Nusrat. I am just taking one point, just 20 points. If you did all 20, we can be here for to continue one by one. Everyone can go for hours and hours. Amazing point. This next point is just non violence ahimsa generally taken to mean not killing or destroying the body. But actually non violence means prabhupāda says here not to put others into distress. People in general are trapped by ignorance and the material concept of life. And they perpetually suffer material things. So unless one elevates people to spiritual knowledge, one is practicing violence.

One should try his best to distribute real knowledge to the people so that they may become enlightened and lead this material entanglement that is non violence. The Prabhupāda, he’s taken non violence to a transcendental level. It’s not about that. You didn’t kill anybody, you didn’t destroy anybody’s body. You had spiritual knowledge. You didn’t try to give it to anyone. You didn’t try to help anybody else out of that ignorance. Say there was, say there’s a doctor and he has the ability. Suddenly somebody falls sick, he prays, helping and the doctor has the cure. He knows how to cure the patient. But the doctor doesn’t do anything, just lets the patient die. So wouldn’t that be violent? There was a doctor, a so called doctor in England who had murdered many patients. I Forget how many, 40, 50 or 200. Some. How many?

300, 280 Patients he murdered by either giving the wrong injection or not giving them the injection when they needed it. He just murdered them. Then they discovered because somebody, you know, I forgot how they discovered, but they discovered. And then they went through his record and they started looking at all the people, all the patients that died under his care. And they could all trace it back to a purposeful malpractice murder and act. So when we get spiritual knowledge, when we get this Vienna, we all become spiritual doctors to a certain degree. Of course we have to be good doctors. We don’t want to, we should know how to treat people. But to whatever degree we have that information, it’s also incumbent on us. It’s a requisite that we should Also be trying to give it to others.

That’s reliance to save people from dying. That’s a Hymnsa. So who in this world isn’t dying? You know anybody here who’s not going to die. Everyone who is born is going to die. Everyone who dies is going to be born again. We have the secret how to end the cycle of birth and death. Not Nubatri Mahatmana Son saving for a month. Within all the science of Kṛṣṇa Purna Janma Nayanki, no more rebirth. So this is actually ahimsa in a much higher level than what this is a proactive himself. This is a. A dynamic ahimsa. Rather not kind of a passive ahimsa that okay, I am not going to harm anybody. You’re not helping anybody from not dying. Helping anybody from dying.

So like this, each of these things is very profound meditation on these good qualities and how does he them in a much deeper sense. Then we analyze these qualities and apply them to Śrīla Gautada. We can see he was the greatest Gyani. He was Bhaktivedanta. Real Vedānta culminates in Bhakti according to Lord Kṛṣṇa here. So he was Bhakti Vedānta. The combination. The combination of devotion and transcendental Gyana knowledge. So very fortunate to be able to follow in its footsteps. What is divine grace. Ac Bhaktivedanta Swami throne. Finally, he wants all of us to help him to spread the message of Chaitanya Mahāprabhu. Lord Chaitanya also came to end this type of ignorance. Not in a negative way, not by hell and brimstone, not by fear, not by chastising and criticizing, but in a very positive way.

By getting them to chant Hare Kṛṣṇa, getting them to participate in Kṛṣṇa conscious activities like Rathayatras, like festivals, like dramas, taking Kṛṣṇa to Sadhana. And they hear about Kṛṣṇa, hear the Bhāgavatam, hear the Bhagavad Gītā, awaken their spiritual thirst. The spiritual quest to understand what are we here for? Where are we going to? There was another quality, that philosophical quest to understand the absolute truth. King Tatta, Brahma, King Adhyatma, King Karma. For the Savottama. I told that story. So King Kabrahma, what is absolute truth? King Tab Karma. King Karma to the Shotam, King Tantra, Brahma, King Adya. What does it tell? What are the fruited activities and who is the supreme personality of God? So the question that Arjuna asked. Qualification. He had the right idea. He asked the right questions. He had Gyana. You think I Mean there are Rādhā said It’s just.

I was thinking when I. I just opened the Bhagavad Gītā and I said okay, any verse I will read that. That was the opens, okay. And I was taking then I should read something in the 13th chapter. Then that’s what opened 13th chapter. But I didn’t have this plan. It’s just totally the thing how in the modern society people are so famous because of their material knowledge. It takes a lot of energy to develop to be an expert in your field. But that’s different. That’s like the 24 elements. Knowing how to deal with the interaction of this material world. It’s completely different than gana or knowledge of the absolute truth. I was just before coming here I saw one of the femens. I was told he was one of the very famous Doctors of India. Dr. Salam Aliktor, famous cardiologist.

When I walked in his room, he showed me a peacock pen and he told me this is the proof. The leaves are signed is a doctor is assigned but is he doesn’t agree with the Darwin theory of evolution. He says Kṛṣṇa created things in the Ghasts. This feather doesn’t have any pigment. The feather reflects light in such a way that we see those colors. So how can something evolve to look beautiful like that with no practical purpose, doesn’t have pigment, That it was a reflection that created that. So. Like that many people if ultimately their learning leads them closer to the absolute to that extent, that’s knowledge. Otherwise it’s just somebody who is famous knows something. Like I read an article about the world famous expert in cockroaches. His whole life he has dedicated a big PhD doctorate, gives lectures.

He’s a world expert on cockroaches. He’s studied all over the world. He’s gone. He knows how they made. He knows how they hide in the wall. He knows everything about cockroach. He’s been able to go and climb in people’s attics to find the queen cockroach, the progenitor and to take that one out and they stop eating. He knows everything. He says that he has developed tremendous respect for the cockroach. I am only afraid somebody dedicated his life to cockroaches study of cockroach. Of course he also gets a lot of money from companies who design cockroach poisons, things like that. What’s going to be his future bird? He needs to get to Bhagavad Gītā. Otherwise you might find him in your kitchen. This is the danger that because people, they don’t understand the overall picture.

They just, you know, get into one thing, you think, whatever, you know, I didn’t want to be a specialist, something that’s great, but you really need not only be a specialist in this 24 elements, the everybody, every human being needs to be also a specialist. There’s that you may do for your occupation but you need to be a specialist in understanding absolute truth. And that’s what Prabhupāda pointed out. That’s the vacuum in the Western culture. That’s what’s missing. That’s what India has to provide to the west, to the world. This is spirituality, that there’s a spiritual purpose behind everything. Unfortunately, many Indians are just aping the West. Aping, meaning that’s slaying or that’s being just imitating, like. Imitating whatever without understanding.

In fact, Prabhupāda, he was, I mean I could never say these things because Prabhupāda said I am an old person so I can get away with, I am old Indian being born in a foreign body, I don’t feel that we could get away with it. But Prabhupāda was very self critical on the Indians. And he would say sometimes that the Indians are like in the west, they’re like old crows and new crows. Then old crow discriminates amongst the garbage, doesn’t need any old garbage. It’s a little picky amongst the good garbage, but a young crow  will take any garbage. So he’s saying in the west they’re already kind of fed up looking for some alternatives where india they’re just taking all the fresh garbage, what they’re rejecting already from the west that they’re taking here.

So he was using such kind of graphic examples to get his point across that we should take the good things from the west but not take the garbage. And that’s enough. I mean of course Internet, there’s maybe many good things there on Internet with a lot of garbage. And that’s what people are seeing ourselves every opportunity. Kali tries to present the ignorance, the agena. So we have to be very active at presenting the Gana, the transcendental knowledge, the good qualities that Kṛṣṇa has instructed us. So I want to thank you for all your. I have always seen so many nice devotees here. I know you’re doing many different activities and different vrindas and preaching. The more we can disseminate KA’s mercy, that  will be the true ahimsa and that  will be the actual welfare work that Prabhupāda was so concerned that we execute.

Time for questions. We have accepted Kṛṣṇa as supreme personality of Godhead. But our parents and relatives are worshippers of Śiva. Is it wrong to visit other holy places like Śrī Shailam Dham when family religious ceremonies are conducted there? Our relatives are not coming in the way of our practicing Kṛṣṇa consciousness. So is it right to antagonize them by refusing to go there? Well, you could visit Śrī Shayla Dharam just thinking of Lord Chaitanya visited there. And in fact almost all the holy places in South India were visited by Lord Chaitanya. Whether they were Shiva, Devī Morgan or. Ganesh. And of course all the Vishnu places paramount. He visited all the holy places. We respect Śiva as the greatest devotee, Vaishnav, Jata, Saru. So we don’t mind visiting holy places of Shiva. When we go there.

We pray to him as a guru, we pray to him as a devotee. Even the Gopīs pray to Kattyani to give Kṛṣṇa as a husband. So we don’t lose. We don’t lose our. We’re not against the Devas. We just understand that they shouldn’t be worshipped as if they were equal to Kṛṣṇa. I have a disciple who’s from Guyana. Guyana is inhabited by many Indians and some African origin people. Maybe 50 roughly. And they were brought there many maybe a century ago. I don’t know exactly how long ago. To be as indentured servants. It is a kind of a backdoor way of enslaving them, almost like slaves. But they could take a loan which would go to their family or something. They may go and work there and they had to pay it off.

But the situation was such that they could never pay back their debt. They were always forced to work and they couldn’t leave that employment. So basically they were just almost like slaves. Bonded labor, bonded laborers. And they only they could somehow they get the money. They could buy themselves out of that bonded situation. So anyway, now that’s not the situation anymore. That’s just the background. So they don’t have. They have a few pounds there in Guyana. And these pandits also preach a lot about Shiva and about mix everything up. They’re not very learned in terms of shastra but they’re respected as pandits. So when this my disciple, he was by occupational welder but he got a job in Canada. And then he became right because would get paid 30, $40 an hour as a master welder.

So it became a big thing amongst his society. He was a big person. But eventually he became a devotee and then he read the Bhagavad Gītā. And then he realized that all these pandits, so called pandits, were misleading the people. So he memorized verses from the Bhagavad Gītā. He must have memorized 50 or 60 verses. And then he’d meet a pandit and then he’d start quoting Bhagavad Gītā. And the pandit didn’t know Bhagavad Gītā, so he would start quoting Bhagavad Gītā, says this and this. And the people, they were afraid of him. He became a Babhan because he knew the Bhagavad Gītā. So of course that’s one way of dealing. Learn the Bhagavad Gītā and you can convince people. But probably if you’re too aggressive, you may alienate many of your family members, but in a very positive way.

But though it’s not wrong to go to the temples, you go to temples of devas. But we bow down to the devas with our right side and we bow down to Kṛṣṇa with our left side. So right side is reserved for devas devotees, straight ahead for the guru and left for Kṛṣṇa, associates of Kṛṣṇa. So like that we go there with that mentality. Sometimes when we predict people have like all the pictures of different devas and worship Modidis in their altar, then we can we tell them just put the Vishnu tattvas on the top and put the devas on the side or the bottom, like one step lower, offer the prasadam to Kṛṣṇa and the Bogada Kṛṣṇa offer the prasadam to the devas. Do worship like that.

I saw that Sahadera also in Mahabalipuram Vishnu temple, which is one of the Dithya Dashas they offer to Parambala. They offer the same facade they take in a basket to all the deva temples. So we worship like that. There’s only one way to keep you up too late. So one last question. In a couple of days we have a presentation on each one. Each one, how are they? Each one teach one important thing that actually the way we learn is by teaching in a gurukul. They teach. They find that the older students teach the younger students and that way they become very proficient. They become very responsible. Also once you have to tell somebody else, then you have to learn it very well. I found when I was a new devotee, they sent me out to the stupid book.

People would ask me so many questions. I didn’t have the answers because I was very new. So then I’d go back and I’d look in the books and ask the senior devotees. I’d find out what were the answers. So next time when I was out on Shankir Khan distributing books, I would ask me. Then I would have the answer. I saw that person again. Oh, I have your answer now. I am ready for you. Say that in a more of a controlled way. In our vriddhas, we like if the older devotees can be responsible to help the younger ones and to learn. And this way it is kind of a paramparā system.

If that’s implemented, it really relieves the pressure off the leader, Bhakti Vriksha, group leader, that he doesn’t have to teach everybody, but he can supervise and see that everybody’s getting imparted some information from other devotees. And it has a dual effect. But you’re helping somebody else, you get the benefit. You also learn. When you have to express it, you have to learn it better. You have to have a deeper understanding. There’s many practical things to learn, but it’s very important that way. If the body is active in teaching, then they can advance nicely into Kṛṣṇa consciousness. And other new devotees also help. Just put a color.