A grateful heart is a powerful heart Prabhupada’s Jaladuta prayer

[Sunday feast class at ISKCON, Atlanta, USA]

Hare Krishna I’m grateful to be here with all of you at the Lotus Feet of the Lordships and I’ll speak today on the topic of A Grateful Heart is a Powerful Heart and I’ll speak this based on Srila Prabhupada’s prayers on arriving in America They are called as Amartya Nirbhaga Karma the prayers to the Lord about how to share the message of the Bhagavad Gita So I’ll talk about this broadly we’ll reflect on the prayer and we’ll reflect about how gratitude is a power Srila Prabhupada came to America at an advanced age of 69 and he was all alone he had practically no money he had just 40 rupees which he came across from India and actually do you know when Srila Prabhupada spent those 40 rupees? in 1968 when he went back to India and from the airport when he wanted to go to the temple that time the rickshaw took those 40 rupees so those 40 rupees which Prabhupada came with he didn’t use even one paisa on that so Prabhupada came with no contacts no institutional support, practically no money and on the way practically the only material resource that he had that was his own body that has sustained two heart attacks now whenever anything bad happens to us a natural human reaction is to be resentful why is this happening to me? and we could say the opposite of being resentful is being grateful so Prabhupada has come to the American coastline and he sees this magnificent coastline all the people busy in their own lives he is a person who has never crossed even the Indian continent anytime before and he is all alone which is an incredible and unsurmountable challenge and the first words that he composes first lines in that song is Bolo Krupa Kule Krishnam Adhame Hritham Hrithim Keelagi Aayi Lekha Kodohi Veda Hrithim Bolo Krupa Kule Krishnam that you have been so merciful to me O Lord Krishna now when I read this for the first time more than 20 years ago it struck me what is the mercy in this? they are alone in a bar and they are alone only and Bolo Krupa Kule Krishnam what is the mercy in that? so actually what Shri Prabhupada was saying is that now what is the mercy of Krishna? at least he has the opportunity to fulfil the instruction of his spiritual master he doesn’t have any facility to fulfil it in terms of resources but at least he has the opportunity and he is grateful just for the opportunity so now from one perspective lot of bad things have happened to me normally when we start off in our life we are some small child 10-12 years old what do they want to be in life? grow up? and they have some grandiose ambitions maybe somebody say I want to become the next president of America or maybe I want to become the biggest CEO of the biggest startup company in history or something like that and then as they grow older life starts beating them because it reverses same person who said I want to become the CEO of the biggest company in the world by the time they graduate they think if I get a job it will be good so what happens? as life beats us down we have big big dreams and aspirations they all start shaking because we start realising life is incredibly tough he had the kind of reversals in his life that most of us can’t even imagine living or surviving he had a genuine desire to serve his spiritual master and he was already married when he met his spiritual master so he thought I can’t renounce so let me earn a lot of money and do it for my spiritual master and he worked very hard to try multiple businesses but various things went wrong sometimes his server was wrong sometimes the fire broke out sometimes the business line went down and his business was not very successful then he tried in multiple places multiple times, sometimes in Kolkata sometimes in Mumbai, sometimes in Allahabad travelling then along with that he also tried to do something spiritual he himself single-handedly tried to run a magazine and not only was nobody interested at that time a cow came and ran over him and he fell almost unconscious on the ground whatever he tried he tried to start a league of devotees a separate institution before his con and the same people who were supporting him became his opponents then he tried to work with his God family and they just didn’t want him to become too influential and somehow everything that he tried to do just collapsed almost everything so it’s so easy to become resentful finally normally we try to do something and it doesn’t work gradually our we start losing hope but instead of Prabhupada’s spiritual ambitions going down they grew bigger and bigger he had no success worth the name in India and he said I want to go to America people would give him strange looks at that time Sumti Goraji who was a sponsor who eventually helped him from America she told him my secretaries are saying you cannot go to America why not? Swamiji America is so cold and you are so cold how will you survive there? Prabhupada said nothing is going to happen Prabhupada somehow persuaded finally he came there were so many things going wrong with his life everything that he was trying was backfiring and still Prabhupada never became resentful so how can one be grateful in such a situation when everything seems to be going wrong so I’ll talk about three principles I’ll use an acronym called A’s A’s your life with gratitude and when bad things happen in our life how can we be grateful so A is look for the good around the bad bad things have happened but instead of fixating on what is bad look for the good around it so what was Prabhupada doing he was not thinking about I have come alone I am just recovering from this heart attack look for the good around it at least I am here in America at least I have an opportunity to fulfil the instructions of the Swamiji and in general what we look for is what we find that means if we are looking for how life is unfair how the world is unjust how people are so bad with us we will find the evidence for that and it is true people sometimes betray us it is true that terrible things will happen we don’t even do a small mistake and still a big reaction comes so it just happens to everyone in life but when something bad has happened we basically have two options either we resent it and then we get crushed under our own resentment when that happens resentment of reality often hurts more than reality itself for example suppose you are supposed to go for an outing maybe with all your friends a spiritual picnic and just the night before that picnic you get flu and then now you are in bed and all your friends are going to be sending photos on Facebook of where they are going, what they are doing this kirtan, this site, this programme and you start thinking why did this have to happen to me now when you have flu flu is not particularly painful but resentment why did this happen to me hurts us much more than the flu so resentment of reality hurts more than reality so if we are looking for how many bad things are happening in my life we will find so many bad things but if we look for the good even if this bad thing is there, I can’t deny it it is bad, I can’t imagine it is good it is bad but look for the good around the bad ok this is bad but what is good so Prabhupada was appreciating that he had the opportunity to serve the spiritual people if we look around us in our own lives there are so many things right if we are just alive, that means there is more right than wrong in this whatever our average age 35, 40, 50, 60 millions of people die before they come to our age so if we are just living we have reason to be great and we are not just living there are hundreds of things which are good in our life we may have a family with us we have a social network with us we have a spiritual association we may have health, we may have insurance so many things which are good in our life our mind tends to fixate on all that is wrong so we need to consciously get it back now sometimes gratitude is recognised as a virtue even by people who are non-spirituals, even atheists recognise that we should be grateful but then you ask them, ok I am grateful who are you grateful to no, I am grateful in general to say I am grateful in general is like saying I am married in general marriage is to a specific person you are not married in general it’s good that somebody who is atheistic is also trying to cultivate gratitude but gratitude is meaningless without an object for the gratitude whom are you grateful to so yes we can be grateful to our parents our friends, our family members other devotees around us ultimately we are grateful to Krishna so Prabhupada is saying bodo krupa koi le Krishna so he could have looked at I am alone, I am old I am sick, what am I doing in this life he did not look at all that he looked for the good around the bad in the big picture at least I have the opportunity to serve my spiritual master Prabhupada had his own disarming humility once he was asked he himself raised the question to his disciples do you know why I went to America since my godbrother went to London he went to UK, why did I go to America now of course there are many reasons after the second world war UK’s stock went down America’s stock went up subsequently hugely up so in the past before the second world war British empire was so big that the sun never set on it and Prabhupada went to London he said the sun never rises here for most of the season it’s quite dark over there cloudy at least so anyway, naturally America was more important so Prabhupada came there but Prabhupada in his own humility said he said my godbrothers went to London they couldn’t succeed I thought if I am going to fail let me try at some other place and fail so that was Prabhupada’s guarantee let me do what I can so he was all alone but he was looking for the good around the back that was A what was the acronym I said in this class look for the good around the back so A is around A is card game so C is counter that means look for the good to counter the bad there is something good in general in our life but if something bad has happened ok all this is good but this bad thing is still there in my life, I can’t deny it ok among the good things that are there in life look for that particular good that can help you to counter the bad say suppose our health collapses we get some disease or something like that then look why did I get this sickness that’s one way of looking at it another way of looking at it is look for the good that helps you to counter the bad so that means ok what do I have I still have I still have maybe I have got health insurance my overall health has been good I have got friends who are doctors I have got supportive community I have a habit of living a disciplined life so I can counter the bad so look for the good to counter the bad when if you see in this particular song Prabhupada his whole focus is on the principle of speaking the bhagavata so Prabhupada he has come for a particular mission that mission is he wants to share the message of Krishna’s love and there is a world filled with materialism and even nihilism hedonism but Prabhupada wants to share the message of Krishna’s love and what is the good that he has to counter the bad the whole influence of passion and ignorance that is there all around him what is there to counter that so it is he says bhagvatera katha siddha bhagavata dhira bhaiyashu ne jambi kaane baal baal Krishna Krishna you are present with me as the bhagavatam bhagavatam is your avatar and not just a physical bhagavatam but just a reciting of the bhagavatam bhagvatera katha siddha bhagavata you in your full potency are manifested as the bhagavatam and he says what is the potency of the bhagavatam dhira bhaiyashu ne jambi kaane baal baal dhira bhaiyashu ne if one just hears the bhagavatam again and again one will become sober and then this is a bengali song which the prabhupada follows krishna’s, kamira’s, praswami’s style and he liberally interspersed bengali words, bengali’s composition with sanskrit verses so 1, 2, 17 to 21 prabhupada quotes 5 verses of it in the bengali song there is sanskrit verses and they are essentially what if you hear the bhagavatam nashti prayeshu badreshu just all the anathas in the bhagavatam shurpadam, swakadha, krishna all those beautiful verses are there so prabhupada is not just looking at oh what a big task i have generally in the religious context war metaphors can be a little alarming for people because people are a little afraid of religious violence but if we consider prabhupada is launching a war against ignorance, he is not looking at the size of the ignorance in front of him he is looking at the lord the lord’s manifestation as the bhagavatam so he has to fight a big war but prabhupada has the weapon of the lord of the bhagavatam so he is focussing not on the size of the opposition but the strength of his weapon to look for the good, to counter the bad generally our mind mind overpowers us by making us believe that we are powerless whenever we are facing a problem the mind makes us believe that you are helpless, you are powerless you can do nothing now there is actually constantly a voice going on in our head and that voice keeps speaking say for example your voice is in your head when will this class end I am hungry now or the voice may say I am sitting on the floor can I sit for some more the voice may even say there is no voice in your head but that is the voice in your head which is saying there is no voice in your head so it is like the enemy who denies their existence to attack you after that so this voice is constantly there in our head and it is constantly discouraging us we try to do anything good what use is it like that it keeps discouraging us so the mind makes us believe that we are powerless and then it overpowers us so whenever bad things have happened to us we can’t deny the bad thing but we have to look at what is the good with which we can counter the bad so now ultimately Prabhupada is looking at the Mahabharata and that was his work actually what did Sri Prabhupada do in America or all over the world he just spoke about Krishna and that transformed people’s hearts so for all of us Krishna is always there with us and if we connect with Krishna that is the good that can help us to counter the bad and it is not just Krishna if you look around us even at a material level there are so many good things for us some of you may have noticed that I need crutches to walk so I have a physical handicap I have polio since my childhood since I was one so sometimes when I go and talk to people in special fields I give some talks about motivation spiritual motivation and acceptance so after that when I talk to those people one of the things that strikes me is that so many of them are still fighting battles that are already lost let me say somebody has lost a hand somebody has lost a leg that might have happened 6 months ago 1 year ago, 5 years ago that battle is already lost you can’t do anything about it but still they are fighting that battle why did this happen to fight battles that are already lost is to be lost in the present so now when I look back at my life I never remember being present in my life so one such meeting I started thinking about it my parents used to tell me that obviously I could run and play like other children so what had happened was my parents had given a I have polio my parents had given a polio dose a vaccine for me but it was a small town in India in Maharashtra and the medical facilities were not so good so the doctor who gave that vaccine had not kept the vaccine very careful so the vaccine became too strong and the vaccine ended up giving me the polio so after that of course I had a maternal uncle in America at that time first thing he asked my mother have you sued the doctor in India there is no culture of that but anyway as I grew up my parents would tell me that that whatever God has taken from you in physical ability he has given you in intellectual ability and I used to think who is this God he has such power over me that he can take anything and do anything but still the point was that they shifted that focus I can’t do this but I am good at this but somehow because of that I was never resentful of it now anybody who sees me for the first time they see the crutches very prominently I don’t even notice that I have the crutches not that because I am so transcendental but just that I have become used to it it’s just like glasses for me I can’t see without glasses, I need glasses but I don’t think about the glasses constantly just wear them and move on similarly I take crutches and walk on so what happens is for me because I was able to shift my parents or help or whatever that look for the good that helps you to move on so for all of us we need to look at the good there is always a perplexing philosophical question why do bad things happen to good people now Prabhupada is not going into any philosophy in this song and he is saying that it’s because of my own karma this happened or anything like that the whole mood of the Bhagavatam is different the Bhagavatam doesn’t try to address the question why do bad things happen to good people at a philosophical level what does the Bhagavatam instead do? the Bhagavatam changes the question when bad things happen to good people what do good people do? and the whole Bhagavatam is essentially different cases of people to whom bad things have happened and how they have responded starting with the central character Parishad Maharaj has said for no fault of his own very minor fault he is cursed to die in seven days Rudrasura he just laughs Sarnath Rudrasura, Chitraketra he just laughs and he is cursed to become a demon Dhruva he just wants to sit on his father’s lap he is severely insulted by his step mother so one after another if you look at the stories of the Bhagavatam they are all bad things happen to good people and none of them get into philosophy of is it my own karma or not focus on what do good people do when bad things happen to them so we see what does Parishad Maharaj do? Parishad Maharaj goes to the forest look for the good to counter the bad what is the good to counter the bad? okay death is going to come let me absorb myself into it by which although the body will die but the soul will get liberated it’s like death is unavoidable for everyone suppose a car it is just racing towards the cliff and that cliff is going to fall now if we look like the car races both of the cliff and crashes to the ground and explodes then we think that person inside is dying but suppose there is a this doesn’t happen in real life so much but in action movies you might see like this suppose there is a rescue helicopter from above and this car magically turns out to be like a convertible so it opens up and then the rescue rope is thrown from above and this person catches it and just as the car goes off the cliff person is pulled out and that person goes to the helicopter and is saved so this may not happen in real life but this is what Krishna does to his devotees and this is what happens to Parishad Maharaj the body goes to his death as per the curse but the soul gets liberated so what does Parishad Maharaj do? he looks for the good to counter the bad now in this case counter is not counter the curse but counter the impact of the curse to raise his consciousness up it’s beautiful that when all the sadists come there Parishad Maharaj doesn’t ask them why did this happen to me? there is no resentment over there instead he is grateful now that this great danger has come on me I am so grateful that all of you are there to help me make this journey help me make this transition so look for the good to counter the bad and the last is E E is look for the good that emerges from the bad the bad is here but right now it may be bad but good can emerge from it and that is what we see in Shri Prabhupada’s movie Prabhupada says you must have some plan otherwise why would you bring me here? and it’s interesting Prabhupada says why are you bringing me to this Ugrasthane? Ugrasthane is this terrible place I don’t know if any other Indian who has come to America has said why have I come to Ugrasthane? Ugrasthane is this terrible place America is like a dream land about 25 years ago I had given GRE and had the opportunity to come to America and instead I decided to serve Shri Prabhupada Krishna so after about 20 years most of my relatives were very disappointed very angry with me and then after about 20 years I came to America on a spiritual speaking tour and then after that when I went back to India all my relatives had not called me for 20 years they called and started talking with me now your life has become successful so Prabhupada is saying why is he saying this is Ugrasthane this is a wonderful place Prabhupada is saying this is a spiritual perspective and everybody is covered with the mummose of Ugrasthane Krishna why have you brought me here? you must have some purpose you must have some plan so he concludes the song by saying my dear lord whatever is your plan just make me your puppet in the land I will dance wherever you take me I will dance wherever you take me just make me dance this is a puppeteer makes a puppet dance make me dance what is the mood over here see he is not about surrender simply I will raise my hand and surrender I will dance but you guide me how to dance that means I will do my part but you tell me what my part is so Prabhupada is looking for the good that will emerge from the bad right time was very dark and weary Prabhupada also says that there are many times he thought let me just go back to India what am I going to do over here but he said come here let me keep trying he kept trying and eventually how Krishna made Prabhupada dance Prabhupada just in 10-11 years after that he built 108 temples across the world he went around the world 14 times on a global tour speaking about Krishna he inspired millions of people to record Krishna Consciousness and Prabhupada was editing books it was phenomenal what Prabhupada achieved so Krishna had his plan Krishna had his turn and the bad things were happening but the good was emerging so Prabhupada he followed Krishna Krishna says I will give you the intelligence by which you can make wise decisions you can come to me you can get others to me but what is the condition for that Desha said of the Yogdana we have to serve Krishna perfectly not not not all of us even in our devotional life things will happen which will just make us shocked we will sometimes see that some devotees will inspire us a lot and sometimes it will happen that some devotees will just feel that oh my god do I want to become a devotee also it will happen because everybody is different everybody has their conditionings so what happens we have to look for the good to counter the bad and look for the good that will emerge from the bad so if we are patient if we are not passively patient but perseverantly patient we do our part and wait for Krishna to do his part then no matter how dark the present may be Krishna will bring a brighter future that is Krishna’s experience and I started by saying a grateful heart is a powerful heart why grateful although Krishna is present in our hearts we block Krishna out of our heart if we don’t have gratitude if we are resentful then Krishna can’t enter into our heart or make his presence manifest in our heart and he can’t act through us even when he wants to help us he can help us only when we open our heart so to the extent we can cultivate gratitude to the extent we can access Krishna’s power Krishna’s power and that can make us much much more powerful than what we would be otherwise so even at a material level each one of us has many things to be grateful for and at spiritual level just the opportunity to connect with Krishna the opportunity to chant Krishna’s name the opportunity to practise something which in itself is so rare and that opportunity to remember Krishna to take shelter of Krishna is something which nothing can take away from us nothing can take away unless we give it so to give one example about how in life bad things would happen it’s just inevitable so sometimes we feel when the bad thing is happening where is Krishna I am worried Krishna is not helping so in the Madhava Vishnu tradition an example is given let’s suppose there is a teacher who is somewhat strict and there is a mother and there is a student now the teacher has told the student to do some homework but the student has not done the homework and the mother knows that the teacher is strict and the teacher will punish the student what is the punishment? nowadays of course such a teacher will get a charge of violence but that was the way we have been suffering in the past so the teacher beats the stick now the mother knows the teacher will beat on the stick the mother doesn’t want the child to be beaten but the mother also doesn’t want the child to be undisciplined so what the mother does before the child goes to school the mother puts a nice thick glove in the hand of the child and the child goes to school and the teacher asks have you done your homework? come here show your hand the stick falls on the hand and a loud noise comes but the glove protects and the child is not hurt so the blow hits but the blow doesn’t hurt so in this example we are like that child material nature, mayadevi, the laws of karma, all of them are like the teacher and Krishna is like the mother and the remembrance of Krishna Krishna consciousness is like the glove so if we remember Krishna if we take shelter of Krishna and pray to Krishna the blows of life will hit us but they won’t hurt us that much because we will be internally sheltered by Krishna Krishna says if you become conscious of me you will pass over all obstacles by my grace so where is Krishna? Krishna may not remove the suffering itself the source of suffering but Krishna will reduce the impact of the suffering by giving us inner strength by giving us inner absorption like I earlier said resentment of reality hurts more than reality so instead of resenting the reality we are thinking of Krishna that reality will not hurt us that much but unfortunately imagine this child thinks today is so hot and this glove is so heavy child takes out the glove throws it away and goes to sleep then what will happen? child will get hit so like that if we neglect Krishna consciousness and then when danger comes then we are caught unequally so if we take shelter of Krishna then whatever karma may get us through whatever karma may get us through Krishna will get us through whatever karma may get us through Krishna will get us through so I will summarise I spoke earlier about a grateful heart is a powerful heart I started by talking about Srila Prabhupada’s mantra and how Prabhupada is grateful Krishna you are so merciful to me although I could say at a material level there is nothing to be grateful for he is all alone he has no money, he has no associates no supporters and his whole life most of his life has been like a track record of great endeavour but little results but Prabhupada will never become the same the bad things have happened he is looking for the good around the bad that is although my service has not got any results much results but now I have opportunity to do service that my spiritual master wanted me to do that is the one thing I am grateful for so for all of us if we just look objectively there are many many good things in our life but unfortunately our mind fixates on the bad and makes our whole life miserable so if we become resentful of the bad things that have happened and the resentment of reality hurts more than reality so first look for the good around the bad then let us say this acronym ACE so C was counter ok the bad is still there what are the good things that can help you counter the bad so Prabhupada was alone resourceless we could say but he had a very powerful resource that was the Bhagavatam and he spoke that and he was confident that by this I can counter so we can look for whenever any problem is there in our life whatever is the biggest problem troubling you look at instead of the problem look at the resources you have in common the mind overpowers us by making us believe that we are powerless but when we see we do have some power to deal with the situations then we don’t feel so powerless and then our mind can’t overpower us I talk about my how I look at people with special needs I find many of them fighting battles that are already lost so instead because my parents shifted my vision from my physical ability to my intellectual ability I never was too resentful about things so we also need to shift the vision from the size of the problem to the strength of the resource that we have to deal with and then he was he was things might be bad right but Krishna will bring good out of the bad so Prabhupada had that faith Krishna you must have some plan why you are not making it and make me play my part make me dance so if we focus on that what can I do in this situation Krishna how can I serve you how can I move forward even small steps we start taking using the resources we have patiently and persistently Krishna will bring us to a better place a brighter place so when bad things happen we may think where is Krishna he is not helping me yes he is helping us not by removing the problem but reducing the impact of the problem just like a mother who gives a glove to a child who is to be punished by a strict teacher so the remembrance of Krishna itself is a resource that is always with us and if we regularly put on the glove that is we regularly practise sadhana vakti so that we make a habit of remembering Krishna then when the danger hits us the glove will be in place and then whatever karma may get us to Krishna will get us through Thank you very much Hare Krishna similar situations where you are fighting back on your daughter but don’t you also think I mean in your case you are fortunate with your mothership your focus is only what the problem was but don’t you have that opportunity of conditioning it such that and each person’s conditioning is different so therefore the way they deal with the challenges is a little different and I think I have also heard some other I mean short clips of yours where you mentioned that I think during this period being a supportive person is more important and then you can help them get through that challenge because sometimes I think in your situation since you have gone through that experience you can speak for it but many people haven’t gone through that experience they try to pacify someone who has gone through or who is going through that experience but since the person sees that the other person who is giving them the advice hasn’t gone through it they are not able to understand what it is I just want nobody else to so when we are going through trouble it’s more important to be there to support them rather than to instruct them I think we should see philosophical knowledge as one resource to help them the purpose is to help them sometimes philosophical knowledge may not be what is required it’s like when Abhimanyu is killed, at that time Arjuna is shattered Arjuna lashes out at everyone lashes out at his brother he said, are all your weapons just like bangles? are you going to protect my son? Arjuna turns to Krishna Krishna, you must have known what was happening why didn’t you tell me? Krishna doesn’t start speaking philosophy about it Krishna says, Arjuna you are not the body of Krishna why are you attached to his body? Krishna doesn’t speak on it Krishna is there with Arjuna to help him and the way he helps him Arjuna, all of us are just as greed as you are so for all your brothers Abhimanyu was their son as much as he was yours they are as much greed as you are he says, great people don’t increase the pain of others by their words but try to decrease their pain please do not speak such words Arjuna, we are all suffering so Krishna is very emphatic there is a time to speak philosophy and there is a time to not speak philosophy so we have to see appropriately what is the best way to help someone now when somebody is going through some difficulty how to help them I don’t want to say that I just don’t want to be resentful we have to see how to help them but I was making a general observation of something that happened maybe a year ago, two years ago, five years ago and still they have not processed it now we have to move on in life and if we keep holding on to resentments from the past, then we stay longer in the past so how we specifically get out of it that’s a specific thing which has to be sensitively brought to case but what I was talking about the principle itself that we can’t stay longer in the past resenting what happened thank you any questions? thank you very much.