Appreciating HH Radhanath Maharaj’s visionary outreach

[Vyasapuja offering at Melbourne, Australia]

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.

I'm grateful to be here amongst all of you today and it's wonderful that all of you have celebrated Maharaj's Vyasa Puja. So I'll speak in three parts about… I'll start with some personal interactions I had with Maharaj. Then I will talk about Maharaj's contribution to Shri Prabhupada's mission, Maharaj's contribution to the world and then Maharaj's contribution to what he is doing for us as his disciples.

So for me, my first interaction with Maharaj was probably a few months after I was introduced to Krishna Consciousness. And that time I asked some questions. Maharaj gave a very logical, very sound answer.

The devotees told me at that time, Maharaj doesn't normally answer questions like this. So Maharaj's questions are more from the heart. I was very impressed by that.

So the devotees told me that Maharaj answers questions according to the way the disciple's disposition is. So then later on, when I was given my GRE, I was supposed to go to America after my GRE. So I was introduced to Maharaj and Maharaj said that he's thinking of going to America.

But he decided not to go because he wants to practice bhakti. So at that time, Maharaj's mood was very different. So Maharaj said at that time, if you want to go to hell, go to America.

If you want to go back to Godhead, stay in India. So thereafter, now if we see Maharaj himself is spending a lot of his time in America and many of his devotees in America are helping him in big ways. So I have over the years studied about how different organizations, especially those religious spiritual organizations, how they survive and succeed after their main founder departs.

And more than 95% of the organizations within first 30 years, they just crumble. So by Srila Prabhupada's mercy, he started the Krishna Consciousness Movement and he had 108 temples. Now we have more than 600 temples and that credit actually goes as much as Srila Prabhupada as to the followers of Srila Prabhupada.

And within that, if you look at the way our movement has developed, we see that during Srila Prabhupada's times, most of his followers were Americans and he had many devotees from Europe and other places. But when he came to India, it was a sensation. But that sensation did not lead to much transformation.

There are not many people who became committed followers of Srila Prabhupada either during Srila Prabhupada's time or after. A few did become but not many. So in the 1980s and especially in the 1990s, that is when our movement really took off in India.

And now India is the powerhouse of the Krishna Consciousness Movement in terms of number of temples, in terms of number of devotees, number of books distributed, number of festivals held, all of it. So this transformation, how did this happen? This happened primarily because of the leading followers of Srila Prabhupada who took up the responsibility of taking forward the mission in India. And among them, the strongest pioneers is the 16th Radhanath Swami Maharaj.

So basically Srila Prabhupada came to America at a very extraordinary time in American history. So there were the hippies at that time who had already rejected, they had rejected society, they had rejected the mainstream culture, they had rejected education, they had rejected a career and Srila Prabhupada came and he often had a very confrontational mood. And what all they had rejected, Prabhupada gave them philosophical reasons to justify the rejection.

And that worked wonderfully. But that kind of wholesale rejection of the world was not something that was sustainable lifelong. For most Indians who still have some amount of piety in their lives, they wanted to practice bhakti and wanted to practice it very seriously.

But it was not so much by rejecting material life. In the past, what it meant was, becoming a devotee meant moving into the temple. If you live in the temple, you are a devotee.

If you live outside, you are not a devotee. So one of Srila Prabhupada's senior disciples said that when Indians would come to the temple, they had no interest of moving into the temple. And at that time, we used to say, these people, they are never going to become devotees.

And we used to neglect them. This is a Prabhupada's western American fault, a leading disciple here. But then over the years, we saw that week after week, month after month, these Indians kept coming.

And if they had been asked by some religious survey organization like Pew or someone, which religious group do you identify with? They would have said Hare Krishnas. But if we had been asked, are they Hare Krishnas? No, they are not Hare Krishnas. So it was only after several years that it went on.

Then the devotees understood, the American leaders, these are our people, these are devotees. They have no intention of moving to the temple, but they are still very dedicated. And that was the time when the whole concept of congregation preaching and congregation development started.

That means devotees are going to stay where they are, but they are going to practice bhakti from there. And then the concept of developing a community where devotees need to be facilitated in whatever is required for their life by which they can grow in a spiritual life. So the whole idea of community as a foundation for spirituality, that was to a large extent pioneered by Swarnath Swami Maharaj in the Jaupati temple.

So our movement traditionally had three definitions of success. Even I quoted that instinctively. How many devotees are made? How many books are distributed? And how many temples are built? These are all important.

But what after that? How do we sustain devotees? How do we take care of devotees? So Swarnath Swami Maharaj, when he started building the community in Jaupati, he focused not so much on distributing books or building temples. He focused on building devotees, having classes, having discussions, having a heart to heart association by which there was a strong bonding in the devotee community. There is a conception in spirituality sometimes that relationships cause bondage and therefore there is a negative conception of relationship was there.

Now we don't want bondage, but we do need bonding. We need a strong bonding in the devotee community and how to do that at a spiritual level? That was what Shilpa Prabhupada, he did talk about in many places, but that was implemented by the leading followers of Shilpa Prabhupada, especially by Swarnath Swami Maharaj. And there basically there are three broad conceptions of spiritual life.

I will make this class a little philosophical because that will be the foundation for appreciating. One conception of spirituality can be called rejection. Material life is all bad, reject it, chant Hare Krishna.

There are problems in your life? Yes, this world is dukkha leham. Get out of this world. We could say that is the rejection model of spiritual life.

Material life is temporary, miserable, reject it and practice spiritual life. Yes, it's true this world is dukkha leham. It's true that we want to go to Krishna, but we have to live lifelong in this world.

And that requires some strategies, some support systems. So the rejection is one. The second is complementation.

Yes, material life is good, but it's not enough. You need spiritual life also. And that you have your material life, but make sure that you give attention to your spiritual side.

There are two running parallel tracks. But the third understanding is not rejection or complementation, but integration. Integration means that if our attitude is to serve Krishna, then we don't have to constantly keep separating.

This is my material life, this is my spiritual life. For a devotee, the devotee falls sick. Is that material or is that spiritual? You can say it's material, the devotee has fallen sick, but that is going to affect the spiritual life.

And if their health is taken care of easily, properly, then the devotee's spiritual life will go on much better. So we cannot in our relationship say that, I love your soul, but I don't care for anything else. I don't care for your mind.

I cannot care for your body. I only care for your soul. That will make us extremely hard hearted.

So that integration where body, mind, soul, everything is taken care of. That was what was done through the counselor system. Then we had the marriage bureau, then we had the school, we had the hospital.

The whole idea is spirituality is not just something we practice when we go to a temple. It is what includes our entire life. And rather than rejecting certain aspects of our life as material, we integrate them all.

And we practice it. So when the Bhaktivanth Hospital started, sometimes some devotees had this idea, this is all mundane. So Maharaj said in the inauguration talk, he says, for the effective functioning of the hospital, all devotees should conduct themselves in the mode of goodness, irrespective of whether they are below it or above it.

Sometimes you may think, I am just transcendental. The patient who is sick, I want to go to a temple and do kirtan. Be responsible over there.

So the whole idea that we can spiritualize not just our consciousness by practicing bhakti directly, but we can spiritualize our family, we can spiritualize our community and we can build a spiritual community where devotees are available to help each other in times of need, where we are caring for everyone holistically, the body, the mind and the soul. That was actually bhakti in the mode of goodness. Bhakti in the mode of passion is largely competition.

I want to do more than you. I want to do more than you. I want to do more than you.

I want to distribute the maximum number of books. So I think in 2000 or something, at that time Radha Gopinath temple, before that it was not distributing books at all. They started distributing books and the devotees went to Maharaj and said that we want to distribute.

Last year this temple had distributed something like 86,000 books. We want to distribute 90,000 books and come first. So please bless us Maharaj.

So Maharaj said, I will pray that you distribute 90,000 books and you come last. So the idea is that if we come last, that means everybody distributes more books. So this is the vision where we want to share Krishna bhakti with everyone and rather than having bhakti with one-upsmanship, I want to do more than you.

It's rather let all of us do more and more. It's this bigger vision where we see that we are all trying to share Krishna and there are so many people who are waiting for it. This is bhakti in the mode of goodness.

In the mode of goodness, we understand that bhakti is a long haul. As we practice lifelong and we can't just neglect the relational side, the emotional side, the physical side of our beings. We have to take care of it and move forwards.

And then in the early 2000s, so the Radha Gopinath community build up very beautifully and then there are several other places also the devotees started moving forwards and the preaching started happening over there. So then we know, most of you probably know about how Maharaj spent his several months with Bhakti Teertha Maharaj in his last days and it was a very sweet interaction at that time. And that was the time when Bhakti Teertha Maharaj told Radha Gopinath Maharaj to write his story and then that was the time he wrote the Journey Home.

He had spoken about some of his experiences before but that was the time he wrote that book. And when he wrote that book, it was at one level he was fulfilling the desire of another Vaishnava. But he also saw that as an opportunity to share Krishna's message to a much broader world.

While our movement was growing in India, in the western world the movement was dwindling. In fact, I was told by Maharaj as well as by several of the other leaders in America to spend more time in America over there and they said that currently in the age group between 20 to 40, among the leaders in ISKCON, there is not a single American in all of America. It's all Indians.

So, the reason for this is manifold but one of the main reasons is that in the western world there is a strong aversion to organized religion because it is seen as dogmatic. It is seen as too authoritarian. So, we live more and more in the western world as well as in westernized India in what is called as the post-modern times.

So, post-modern times means people don't believe in anything. In pre-modern times, people believed in scriptures. In modern times, people believed in science.

In post-modern times, people don't believe in anything. Science also, they say, technology is very good, we want it. But in science, they know there is politics in science and there is ego of scientists and all that.

Because of that, we don't really believe what science is. If technology works, we'll use it. The only thing that is considered authentic by post-modern people is experience.

If you have had some experience and you want to share your experience with us, that is what is authentic. That is what we want to know. So, in America, one of the fastest growing religions is Mormonism.

There is a group of Christians called Mormons and they were heavily revived by both mainstream Christians as well as mainstream America. And there was a teenage girl who grew up as a Mormon and then around when she was around 25, she wrote a memoir of her life growing up in a Mormon family. And it's an insider authentic account and that became a New York Times bestseller.

And that transformed the mainstream perception about what Mormonism is. So, experiential spirituality is what people are interested in very much. Basically, there are three ways in which we can share a spiritual message.

Before the Journey Home was published, Maharaj gave it to me to go through. I used to do writing and editing. Maharaj asked, go through it and if you have any feedback, let me know.

So, I went through it and I pointed a few grammatical things and other things. I told Maharaj, Maharaj, I love the tone of this book. Maharaj said that this is the tone you need for a western audience.

Maharaj, this is not like you are not sitting on a Vyasasana and giving a lecture over here. You are sharing your experience with others. I said, this is exactly what is required if you have to reach to a western audience.

He told me, you should also learn to write for a western audience. Then you will be able to, India is also getting westernized, you will be able to connect with them also. So, then I started looking, what does it mean? What was exactly the tone? And what is required to reach a western audience? So, basically my understanding is, there are three broad ways in which we can share a message.

That is prescriptive, normative and descriptive. Prescriptive means you should do this. So, for example, there is a couple who has been married for 25 years and they are addressing a group of young couples.

We have been happily married for the last 25 years and we would like to share with you. Yes, we want to hear. Now, if the same couple say that, we believe that actually no one should ever get divorced.

You give instruction like that, that's descriptive. No one should get divorced and then the young people say, no one wants to hear from you, get lost. So, then there is normative.

Normative means this is the truth. Divorce is a sin against God and should never be done. Those who do that will go to hell.

You go to hell. We don't care for you. But descriptive means, this is what I did, this is what we did and this is how it worked for us.

So, if we have that mode, yes, we want to know how you made it work. We would like to make it work. Because in the postmodern world, people, there is nothing that is working.

There is a great crisis, a big crisis of relationships because of which people have no trust. So, if somebody has authentic experiences, they are very interested. So, the Journey Home was a book which tapped this audience.

So, I didn't know the words at that time. But the tone of the Journey Home is not prescriptive nor normative. It is descriptive.

This is what I did. This is what I experienced. This is what I learnt and it was a remarkable book.

So, because of people's aversion to religious organization, there is people are interested in power and dogma. We are not interested in that. But people are very interested in spiritual individuals.

If somebody is spiritual, somebody has spiritual experiences, we all know about it. So, Journey Home positioned Maharaj not as a leader of any organization but as a spiritual individual. And that book has opened the doors and the hearts of thousands and thousands of people all over the world, say millions.

And from that a whole new chapter of outreach in the western world has begun. So, when Maharaj started this, actually he had a huge congregation in India and it was growing enormously. But Maharaj did not rest on his laurels.

For him, if he just does one program in India, anywhere, thousand, two thousand, three thousand people will come for the program. Even for Bhagavatam class if he gives, there are thousand people there. But Maharaj chooses to spend time in America where sometimes twenty, thirty, fifty, hundred people come.

But he said, that is where is the greatest need. This year only I met Maharaj in Chicago. He told me that if I spend the same amount of time in New York, in London and in Mumbai, the devotees in London, our community is already much, we can say the community is very established in Mumbai, community is very well established in London also.

So he says, in the same amount of time if I spend in London or Mumbai, the devotees can organize much bigger programs for me and can reach many, many more influential people. But Maharaj said, Prabhupada said that New York is the most important city in the world. And that's why I am spending so much time here.

So Maharaj, he, after he had built a whole community and created a flourishing congregation, he started a whole new chapter where earlier he was like a commander of a huge army. But he chose to go and start a new battle with, where not many people come for the program. People who come are also not that reverential.

They are okay. You have your opinion, I have my opinion. And so the whole idea is that at one level Prabhupada left India for America because he did not get much success in India.

Maharaj was in India and Maharaj went from India to America even when we had a huge amount of success in India. That is because he wanted to establish and expand our movement in America. And through the various, now for people to grow spiritually what all is required? There are broadly three ways in which people, the spiritual level of reality is not so easily accessible for people, accessible to people.

So people broadly come to spiritual life in three ways. So one is cultural, other is intellectual, third is social. Cultural means say most Indians they come to temple because their deities is there, aarti is there, prasad is there, festivals are there.

So yes, I want to, many parents themselves are not interested in coming to temple but when they have children, I want to pass the culture on to my children. So they will come to the temple at that time. So that's cultural aspect.

Then there is the intellectual aspect. Some people, they may not themselves be seekers in terms of wanting to know the answers to life's fundamental questions. I sometimes say that Maharaj went out in search for God.

In fact he travelled all over the world. Most of us didn't go out in search for God. But most of us devotees came out in search for us.

And they gave us some books, they invited us for some program. So when I say intellectual, it's not so much philosophical search for God, that is very very rare. But it's just that answers to practical questions.

If people ask, why do you do this? I don't know. You should find out. So some people, oh this makes a lot of sense.

So the philosophy, the intellectual aspect is what they are attracted to. And for some people, it is social aspect. Yes, I like to be in a community.

I like to have a lot of people around me. Nice people to talk with, nice people to socialize. So for example if you have a program, for some people the class is the most important thing.

For some people the aarti is the most important thing. Many temples, if you have a class, for the class maybe 20 people are there, but for the aarti there are 100 people. And they come with a reverential attitude.

It's not that, their interest is more cultural. And for some people it's more social. I want to be around good people, I want to spend time.

So for them, for many people, it is not the class that is the most important. It is the time after the class that we meet people and sit and talk. That's what gives them inspiration.

So broadly speaking, there are different ways in which people come to Krishna. So Maharaj started his preaching in the West, but then you have to demonstrate what it is all about. So that means that okay, his book gives his experience, it gives the bhakti wisdom, but just one talk, even if it is a very inspiring talk, it is not enough to transform people.

Just having one inspirational talk is like blowing a whistle amidst a storm. The whistle is heard for a few minutes, it's over afterwards. So then Maharaj began a whole new phase, that is the Govardhan Eco-Village.

The Govardhan Eco-Village, in 2007-2008 when I had met Maharaj, Maharaj had told me to start writing for a Western audience. So I had asked him what topics I could write on. So at that time he said environment is a big thing in the Western world.

So we started the Govardhan Eco-Village. The whole point of it was that Maharaj said this should be natural and comfortable. It's two things.

Normally when you go to a natural place, if you go to villages, it's natural, but it's too austere for most people. So Maharaj said it should be natural and comfortable. And through the establishment of the Govardhan Eco-Village, what has happened is, many of the Western people who come for programs, wherever Maharaj does programs, many of them know that there are yoga crowds, they are interested in India and they like to go for an annual pilgrimage to India.

So now almost all the major yoga circles in the Western world, they in America especially, now for them Govardhan Eco-Village is like a major tourist center. They go to Haridwar. Mayapur is not so well known outside ISKCON.

They sometimes go to Vrindavan, but usually they go to Haridwar, Hrishikesh, those are places. But in Govardhan Eco-Village, Maharaj has brought together the comfort of the West, the naturality of a forest environment and the spirituality of Vrindavan all together. Have any of you been to Govardhan Eco-Village? Some of you.

So there is a replica of the 12 forests of Vrindavan. So there is, so it's basically people, Prabhupada came to America, most people here are covered by the modes of passion and ignorance. Those who are in ignorance, they will not be interested much.

But those who are in passion, they appreciate comfort. But even people in passion, they also want some goodness. They want some break, that's why they want to go to some natural place.

So if spirituality, if bhakti is presented in a setting of goodness, that has enormous… So many other spiritual organizations, their major transformation that people do is not just through lectures. After lectures, they invite people for retreats to some mountain here, there. And that's where people get transformed.

Some of you may know that Govardhan Eco-Village recently won an international award by a United Nations organization. And now the Indian government has also designated it as a major spot for spiritual eco-tourism. So that is something which is, the book was there, the book gives an intellectual understanding.

And the cultural experience is what Maharaj is providing through the Govardhan Eco-Village. And the social aspect is that Maharaj always, in most of his classes, he talks about humility. One time one devotee asked Maharaj, sometimes with some people our wavelength doesn't match.

So what should we do? Maharaj replied, humility means to change your wavelength so that it matches. So his stress is always on trying to understand people where they are at. And present bhakti accordingly.

So there is, what is happening by Krishna's mercy, by Maharaj's vision, is that a large number of people are gaining enormous appreciation for Sri Prabhupada's legacy. In the past what had happened for us was that there are some people who would become devotees and others would become alienated. You people are too fanatical.

But by Maharaj's vision, a good number of people are becoming devotees but many many people are also becoming favorable. It's like otherwise we used to live in what I call as self-congratulatory isolation. We are so pure, we pat ourselves on the back.

Why are people not coming? They are in maya. So that was what we were having. And what happens is the less people come, that only confirms.

They are so fallen, that's why they are not coming. We have to be present in such a way that if people can't come to the full level, whatever they can appreciate, whatever they can practice, they should be able to practice. So we should be able to facilitate that.

Everybody is going towards Krishna but some people may want to go from their place. We need to accommodate that. So a huge number of people are appreciating the Bhakti tradition because of the vision that Maharaj is slowly implementing.

At a practical level for us, for me my main interaction with Maharaj has been when I have been Western preaching and when I have been writing. So I edited two, three of his, both his books. Journey Home a little bit but Journey Within I did quite a bit.

Originally the book's name was Yoga of Love. And then when Journey Home became so famous, then they said to continue that thing, they changed the name. Bhakti Yoga, Journey Yoga of Love was there but they made it Journey Within.

So when Maharaj wrote that book and he said that at that time he was going to give it to the publisher and Maharaj sent a manuscript by email to me and I went through it and I gave some comments. Then I went to Mumbai and Maharaj said, are you staying here for a few days? I said, I can stay Maharaj. Yes, whatever suggestions you have made, they are very good.

Now you implement all of them. So then I started that. And then it was almost like a, on the computer it was a 250-300 page book.

So I was there for almost one week. Every day I would spend several hours with Maharaj. Going over some different points and discussing.

And finally one night Maharaj told me, I think it was just before Gaura Poornima, he says, tomorrow morning I am planning to send the book to the publisher. So it was around 9 o'clock I met him. Maharaj says, can you go through the book once, do a proof reading and send the book tomorrow.

So it was 9 o'clock at night. And then I started. So whole night I was awake.

And several days it had been like a marathon work. So afterwards I told Gaurang Prabhu, it's been like a marathon for me for the last one week. So I said, Gaurang Prabhu told me, it's been a marathon for me for the last 10 years.

So that night I was working on the computer, working, working. I was so tired. Just crashed on the computer and cracked the screen.

Fortunately I completed the book. And the next morning I was at 10 o'clock in Maharaj's room. So then I was telling Maharaj, this spelling needs to be corrected, this spelling needs to be corrected.

Maharaj was in a very cheerful mood. And I was spelling Bhakt Siddhanta. So we have double D in Siddhanta.

So there is only D over there. So Maharaj said, this spelling needs to be corrected. I said, congratulations.

I looked at Maharaj and said, you passed the test. He said, what do you mean Maharaj? I had put that spelling wrong to check whether you will find it. I was bewildered, I didn't know what to say.

I just looked at Maharaj. I said, don't worry, I was just joking. So then Maharaj, we completed that book.

What my experience over there was that, although Maharaj is very loving and kind and affectionate, but when it comes to service, that is to be done for Krishna and for Prabhupada, he wants it to be done very well. And make sure that it is done up to high standards. So for us, we can get association with the spiritual master in different ways.

Now all of us naturally hanker for personal association with the spiritual master. But it's very difficult for Maharaj. He says, my heart is with devotees, but I am limited.

I was just in Sydney and there is one devotee from China, who said that we want to invite Maharaj to China to do a big program in universities. So I have been trying to contact Maharaj for the last three years, but I have not been able to get in touch with him. So it's not that Maharaj wants to extend himself, he wants to give himself as much as possible.

But his mood was that, where there is the greatest need, that is where the greatest mercy is available. That is where we can make the greatest contribution. So Maharaj is trying his best to expand Prabhupada's mission in the western world, especially in America and we can always associate with him through the classes that he gives and through the community that he has built, through those devotees whom he has trained.

And personal association is wonderful when it comes. But more important than personal association is personal transformation. And personal transformation is possible for anyone who is ready to practice the process of bhakti.

So as devotees, if we get the association at a personal level, that's wonderful. But more important is, if we apply the instruction and try to transform ourselves, then the potential for transformation has been provided in a very powerful way. So I conclude with one more point.

Generally, no one can change anyone. Every relationship begins with the promise that we will be controllers. We form a relationship, this person has some problems, but when they associate somebody as inspiring as me, they will get transformed, they will become better.

But every relationship gives us the realization that we are not the controllers. The only way we can change anyone is by inspiring them to change. And to inspire anyone to change, broadly speaking, there are only three things we can do.

That is, we can share knowledge. Let's say parents are there. Parents may want their children, will want their children to grow up and become nice, responsible, serious devotees and responsible people in general.

Now, in teenage children often go through a difficult phase in their life. So at that time, parents can offer primarily three things to guide the children. That is, provide knowledge, create facilities and set an example.

Provide knowledge means that, okay, if you do this, this is going to happen. If you drive a car when you're drunk, this will happen, that will happen. Provide knowledge.

Second is, create facilities. If we tell our children, okay, you should come to the temple and practice bhakti. Children can't be expected to attend classes which are meant for adults.

Create some facility for them, some Sunday school for them or some drama, whatever. Create facilities. And third is, set an example.

That if we are ourselves devoted to Krishna and our devotion to Krishna makes us better parents, then our children will see God and they will appreciate. So similarly, ultimately how one person can influence another is in these three ways. Knowledge, facility and example.

And His Holiness Radhaath Maharaj, even if the personal association is not there, these three are abundantly available. Knowledge, he gives many classes and many of his well-trained disciples also give classes from which we can learn a lot. So knowledge is being provided.

And facilities, wherever we are, there are facilities. If the senior devotees are there, they create some facility, they create some support system and that model is gradually being adapted and adopted in different parts of the world. There is a counselor system in Chowpatty.

But there are other systems similarly which have come up in different parts of the world. But there are facilities. The facilities can be provided based on time, place, circumstance.

And there is example. So if you associate with devotees, you hear about Maharaj, you see how he himself is setting an example of tireless service to Krishna. So if we take avail of these three things, knowledge, facilities and the example, then even if there is not much personal association, we will experience the fruit of personal association.

That is personal transformation. And that is life's ultimate purpose. So that is something which we all can pray to Maharaj on his Vyasa Puja day that we all become personally transformed.

That we all can become better human beings, better devotees and in our family, in our community, in our society, we can become agents of positive change. Helping each other raise our consciousness and ultimately go closer and closer to Krishna. So people are averse to institutions and Bhakti Sahaja Yoga Thakur has wanted an institution, Prabhupada has established it.

So how can their aversion be overcome? See Prabhupada sometimes said that ISKCON is my body. But Prabhupada also taught that we are not our bodies. What I mean by that is, not to minimize in any way, but to understand that there is an institution and there is a purpose.

So people are not against a spiritual purpose. So if we present the spiritual process, if we present Bhakti Yoga as a process for personal transformation and then ISKCON is a facility where we can do it better. In the journey home, Maharaj never says that I joined ISKCON.

The word ISKCON comes only once. Can you guess where it is? It is when Maharaj is introducing Prabhupada. He founded the International Society for Krishna Culture.

That is the only time. He said that actually after that I went to Vrindavan, I went to West Virginia and I lived a life similar to the way Ghancha Baba was living. In a community over there.

So Maharaj classes also. How many times does he talk about ISKCON purpose? He talks about associating with devotees, chanting the holy names, cultivating the mood of a servant of servant and trying to be agents of compassion. So we focus on the wisdom and the process and then the institution is meant for sharing the wisdom and for providing facility for applying the process.

We don't have to deny the institution. We don't have to overemphasize the institution. So when people say okay this wisdom makes sense.

This process transforms. They will take it. So what we need is not that we have to reject the institution.

But not that we have to downplay the institution. But that's not what we have to thrust in the face. To present that, what do you stand for? What are you all people about? Bhakti Sahasrara Thakur also recognized at times that towards the end he said, I felt as if instead of building these temples, you take all the marble from the temples and distribute books.

One of the last instructions, one of my friends has done his PhD in Bhakti Sahasrara Thakur and he said that one of the last conversations Bhakti Sahasrara Thakur had, he said, instead of building all these temples, if I had just trained a group of 100 devotees to become teachers of Gaudiya Vishnu, that would have had a far greater effect. Now of course he didn't do that, Prabhupada did that also. But the point which I am making is that institution is important, but it always has its challenges.

Because there are people, once the structure comes up, once power comes up, once position comes in, once wealth comes in, people can get misdirected. So rather than, so Jyasis are not blind to the fact that institutions have problems. There is a lecture of Bhakti Sahasrara Thakur also about how he talks of Putana.

He says, Putana tried to, she came to nourish Krishna, apparently, but she was actually poisoning Krishna. Similarly, he says that the institution has to be like a nurse for the Bhakti. But sometimes the institution gets corrupted, then it can become like Putana, which poisons the Bhakti.

So, he was also aware of the dangers. And Prabhupada himself was also aware, he said that. The purpose, there was one time when devotees, they just decided, without consulting Prabhupada, to centralize the whole management of ISKCON.

They said all, for example, Lakshmi collected by, this is in America, all Lakshmi collected by all American temples will come to one central body. And that body will decide which temple should get how much money. And when they did this, Prabhupada sent a letter to all the temple presidents saying that I have suspended the GBC.

I suspended the GBC and I will, you just directly correspond with me. And he said, this kind of bureaucracy is not going to work. Prabhupada wrote a very beautiful letter and he said, the purpose of the institution is to inspire the individual to practice Bhakti.

And the purpose of the institution is to facilitate, to ensure that the individuals are practicing Bhakti. But it is to inspire the spirit of service among devotees. So, Prabhupada was also aware of the dangers.

The institution is necessary. Because that is where the community is formed. That is where the people come together.

So, and people also recognize this. Even when there are some people who reject all, say the hippies. They rejected all institutions.

But the hippies themselves were a movement. That also became a movement. So, basically my example which I like for this is that if there is a drop of water at the mountain top and has to go to the ocean.

For one drop of water to reach the ocean is very difficult. But if a hundred drops come together, that becomes a tributary. Thousand drops come together, it becomes a river.

And that river can overcome obstacles and then it can reach the ocean very easily. So, for all of us, we have some spiritual interest. But that is like a trickle.

Like a small trickle. If we all alone have to practice Bhakti, it is going to be very difficult. But when we come together in the devotee community, then it becomes like a forceful river.

And we all move towards Krishna. Sometimes when there is a lot of water, there are people who come up, they want the water for their own purposes. They build a dam over there.

They block the water. They want to take the water elsewhere. So, like that, whenever there is an institution, there are some people who will be power hungry.

Some people who will be interested in ulterior motives. They will come. So, we have to make sure that the water keeps moving towards Krishna.

Water keeps moving towards the ocean. So, the institution is like the bed of the river. And the Bhakti is like the river itself.

When the bed is there, the river will move faster. But the point is, the river should be moving forward towards Krishna. So, we have international society.

That's an organization. But for Krishna consciousness. So, Krishna consciousness is the flow of the river.

And international society is like the river bed. So, we make sure that we keep moving towards Krishna. And encourage others to move towards Krishna.

And people see that they are moving towards Krishna. That there is a transformation that is happening. Then the aversion to institutions will gradually go away.

Does this answer your question? Okay. So, why do devotees sometimes die in ghastly accidents or terrible ways? Trauma. Yeah, I know trauma.

And they are also great devotees. So, sincere devotees die in very painful ways. And it causes trauma for others.

It shakes the faith of others. So, how do we face it? Yeah, it's a difficult question. I gave a class.

That event happened after that I was supposed to give a class. It was probably the most difficult class I gave in my whole life. But I tried to make some essential points out of that.

First of all, we all have to make choices. Either we accept that things happen by chance or things happen by plan. So, if we consider some people say, Oh, God doesn't exist.

Science has all the answers. But science also provides its answers based on the presumption that things happen in an orderly way. Last year when I was invited to Cambridge University to give a talk on science and spirituality, we went by the tree where Newton saw the fruit falling.

So, now, Newton saw the fruit falling and asked, what made the fruit fall? That question's answer led to the theory of gravity. But that question itself has an assumption that things don't happen by chance. There is some plan, there is some purpose, there is some cause.

So, all knowledge is based on the assumption that there is some order out there. Now, atheists say there is no God. Then what is the result? Okay, why do plants fall? Why do fruits fall? That's because of the law of gravity.

How are birds able to fly? That's the principle of thermodynamics. So, why are we living? That's for no purpose. So, we get sentenced, if we remove God, then we get sentenced to looking for islands of meaning while drowning in an ocean of meaninglessness.

This makes sense, this makes sense, this makes sense. But life, it makes no sense. So, that makes no sense.

And science also, when it finds something that doesn't make sense, so, for example, Newton's theory of gravity development, then they found that subatomic particles didn't make sense, how they were working. And they didn't reject the science or reject theory of gravity or reject the principle of orderliness. They came up with a deeper theory.

It's quantum physics, theory of relativity, whatever. So, the point is that when we see disorder, either we can see it as disorder or we can see it as order at a level that we don't presently understand. So, now to understand Krishna's love for us, we have to appreciate both the length and the breadth of our existence.

The length means this life is not all that there is. That we have gone through many lifetimes. And our life extends beyond this life.

So, what happens in this life or what happens even at the end of this life, that is not the final story. And beyond that, the breadth of our existence. Breadth means we are not just the body.

We are the body, mind and soul. Sometimes something may be, conversely, some people may be very comfortable physically living in a very comfortable, easy house. But there they come at suicide.

So, the body is comfortable but the mind is miserable. They are comfortably miserable. So, the point is that our existence has various dimensions.

Body, mind and soul. So, these two points, the length and the breadth of our existence that we see, then what happens to us during this lifetime at the physical level is not the complete reality. So, it is just a part of the reality.

And yes, death appears to be very distressing because there is an irreversible finality to it. But then, why talk about only death? Devotees sometimes get terrible diseases. Devotees sometimes go through upheavals in their life in different ways.

So, why does this happen? This is the broad understanding is that actually what will be beneficial for the soul's spiritual evolution may not appear beneficial at the level of the body in this lifetime. When Abhimanyu is killed, at that time Arjuna is devastated. Before Arjuna, Yudhishthir is devastated.

Because Yudhishthir feels that in order to save myself, the Chakravyuh was meant to capture him. In order to save myself, I send this sixteen year old boy to his death. He gets so upset.

He says, I can't face Arjuna. He says, I will charge into the Kaurava ranks. Either I will avenge Abhimanyu or I will die myself.

And he is charging in over there. At that time, Vyasadeva comes. Yudhishthir, despite his being agitated, he has his culture.

So, he gets down off his obeisances. And then he breaks down, he shatters his heart. So, Vyasadeva says three things over there.

First is that no one, no matter how virtuous they may be, can ever escape the law of death. Secondly, he says that in this world, no matter how virtuous a person may be, because this world is a place of temptation, one can be pulled down anytime. However high a pedestal one may be in.

But Abhimanyu has now gone to the arena of temptation. So, rather than lamenting his death, he should lament the fate of those of us who are here, still vulnerable to temptation. And then he says, okay, if he had to die, why like this? He is very unfortunate.

Then he says, inscrutable below the Lord is surely for the good of all living beings. How it is so, you will understand if you do His will. If you do His will.

If you do His will, in due course, you will understand it. So, the material world has its uncertainties, has its anxieties, has its miseries. Jatayu was killed brutally by Ramana.

Why? Jatayu's death was heroic. Because he fought trying to save Rama. And Lord Rama was there holding him in His lap when he departed from His body.

So his death was brutal. But it was still glorious. You could say, why couldn't I have Lord Rama arranged in some way that Jatayu could have survived? Jatayu is an example of a person, he lost the battle against Ramana, but he won the war against illusion.

By dying in the presence of the Lord, for the service of the Lord, he actually transcended all illusions and attained the spiritual world. So sometimes, what exactly may be needed for whom to grow spiritually, we don't know that. So, the why question is simply the pathway to frustration.

I keep asking, why did this happen? Why did this happen? Why did this happen? The why question has no answers. But instead, we just change the question to how. Krishna, how can I serve you now? How can I move forward now? So the how question opens doors.

So as devotees, if we have this twin faith, first is that, whatever happens, we all are servants of Krishna. I am a servant of Krishna. And by living in the mood of service to Krishna, I find that my life, even in this world, is better than by trying to live in the mood of a controller and enjoy it.

You can see that qualitative difference. And secondly, that Krishna is our very nature. That Krishna wants the best for us.

So sometimes, the way he arranges for some devotees to depart from this world, that may be very brutal at the physical level. But in that also, Krishna gives shelter internally. So we see only a part of the picture.

We see only what is happening at the bodily level. But then, if we just rely on the bodily level, if we just rely on the pratyaksha pramana, then ultimately we can't even see God. So why practice anything at all? At a more fundamental level we can say that.

We, at the physical level, there can be as many reasons for believing in God as there are for not believing in God. But for us, we are practicing bhakti not just because it is benefiting us physically. There are many benefits.

But because it is benefiting us emotionally, it is benefiting us spiritually. So even in this life, we see that, we can look in our own hearts. What is it that is the basis of our conviction for practicing bhakti? Is it, okay, physically there have been some changes.

But it is primarily internal changes that have happened for us. We got a better sense of life. We got a better purpose for life.

We have got better self-mastery by which we can pursue the purpose of life. So that's why, as devotees, we have sometimes to accept that at the pratyaksha pramana level, at the level of the body, at the level of the senses, the world will sometimes give us evidences that will increase our faith. And sometimes the world will give us evidences that will damage our faith.

I was just in America, in Fort Lauderdale. And there, I was speaking about how we look at the present and plan for the future. Krishna looks at the future and plans the present.

So Krishna's vision is very different. And that's why, what is good for our future, he will do. So after I spoke this, one Russian Mataji, she came and talked with me after the class.

And she said that she was in New Vrindavan. And it's an isolated place. So she had to go back.

And there was one devotee who was going next morning at 10 o'clock. So I can take you with me. I can take you to the nearest town from where you can take a bus or something.

So then she was waiting there. 9.45 she came, 10, 10.15, 10.30. And she was trying to call him, but there was no range. And by 11.45 she got a call.

She was able to connect with him. And he said, oh, I'm sorry, I forgot about it. Now I have got almost more than three-fourths of the way.

I have a very urgent meeting, I can't come back. And the range went off. Phew, I was burning.

You wasted. You should have told me. How could you forget like this? I was waiting for you.

And then, and she was going, she was in the temple in the evening. She was in kirtan. And then another Mataji came and told him.

Do you know that devotee? He was there yesterday. He said, yeah. She was still feeling angry with him.

He says, his car had a bad accident. He was hit by a drunken driver. And the passenger side of it was completely destroyed.

So he was in the hospital, but the driver's side was not so damaged. So she realized. If she had been in the passenger side, she would have been killed.

She saw the pictures of that car. So the point here is, that this is an evidence, which at a particular level can boost our faith. So sometimes we will see that Krishna has a plan.

And we will, so in her case, in six hours, she saw what is the plan of Krishna. But in some cases, it may take months, years, decades, to understand what Krishna's plan was. So for us, when we are trying to practice bhakti, we need to, there is shabda, which is what we get in shastra.

There is praptaksha, what we experience in this world. And normally we talk about anuman, as something which is speculative. But anuman, when it is directed according to shastra, it is called vichar.

It is scripture-based reasoning. So when we are going through this world, the way we need to function is that we need to do the vichar, the vichar by which praptaksha will be harmonized with shabda. So some praptaksha, some things that we see in life, they will seem to be damaging our feet.

Some things we see in life, they will be enhancing our feet. So the praptaksha level, we will get both kinds of evidences. So it is our vichar, it is our reasoning, it is our scripturally guided intelligence by which we need to harmonize the praptaksha with the shabda.

So then that means that sometimes we see things which vindicate, which strengthen our feet. Yes, this is what scripture says and this is what I am seeing it. It's true.

But sometimes when we don't see it, at that time we have to say that Krishna has some other plan. It's a long-term plan which I am not able to see at my level. But based on the fact that Krishna bhakti has transformed us in our own life at a mental level, at a spiritual level, you see that Krishna is real and Krishna really benefits us.

So even if something as disastrous as that is happening at the physical level, you see that at the emotional level, at the spiritual level, Krishna is there with the devotee. So we know that famous pastime of Ramavicharya, when he asked Kanchipurna, what if a devotee dies suddenly and not able to remember Krishna. So Kanchipurna was a spiritual master and he asked Varadaraja.

And Varadaraja said that, I will remember the devotee and I will give my remembrance and I will give Shastra. So with that understanding we see that in such situations there are certain plans that Krishna has which we can't pursue at our level. But by looking at other occasions in our life and other devotees' lives where Krishna's plan was revealed to us, we can have faith that Krishna did have a plan.

And that way we can pursue it in our bhakti. It's certainly distressing and it's not that we are meant to somehow deny our emotions. One thing I speak very categorically is that it's not that everything that happens is good.

Bad things happen in life. When Draupadi was dishonored, nobody told her, jo hua ho achha hua, everything happens. Everything that happens is not good, but everything that happens can be for good.

Bad things happen in life. And when bad things happen, we will be distressed. And to have emotions of grief, to have many emotions of anger or doubt, Draupadi, when she met Krishna, after the whole incident happened, in the Swayamvar, when Draupadi, sorry, not in Swayamvar, in the Asat Sabha, when Draupadi was being dishonored, all that happened was her saree became inexhaustible.

Sometimes in movies when we see Krishna over there sending the saree, but Krishna was not there. Nobody saw Krishna over there. So that's why at that time, Draupadi, when she met Krishna, Krishna came in the forest of anxiety.

Draupadi was so upset. Krishna, I'm your friend, I'm your devotee, I'm your relative. I called to you for help.

Why didn't you come? You're not there. Now Krishna doesn't say, I'm God, I've taken my perfect plan. Krishna understands.

Krishna says, I didn't know. So I was fighting with Shalva, and he was destroying the arcana. I had to protect her over there.

As soon as I came to know, I came here. So Draupadi, you are very virtuous, and those who have wronged you, they have done a grievous mistake. Stick to Dharma.

So, to have some flicker of doubt, to feel anger, to feel fear, to feel horror, all these emotions, you don't have to suppress them. These are just natural reactions. But rather than letting our faith be decided by just this one incident.

One incident like this can definitely disturb us. But if we look at the broader picture, then we acknowledge the emotions that we feel, but we don't necessarily act on those emotions. And we pray to Krishna, Krishna, how can I serve you now? How can I make sense of things? How can I move? And that way, we'll find that even in such situations, by harmonizing our protection with Shabdas, then we will be able to move forward and maintain our faith.

Great, Krishna. Do we have time? We've got lecture at 7.