Don’t let the mind drag you away from the tasty to the tasteless

Thank you how astonishing is this how since Pulashekhar Maharaj prays some of his prayers are observations basically these are verses and not all of them are prayers exactly these are verses offered to the lord and they are all glorification of the lord and from there the glorification is done indirectly so here is one such occasion in this human world how astonishing it is here the word astonishing is used in a euphemistic sense to refer to astonishingly stupid so what is the astonishing thing sudhambari tejyavisham pivanti that people are giving up nectar and taking poison you know generally speaking if there is a menu if there is a say a feast in which there is a delicious item say gulab jamun and then there is a bitter tasty item say karela sabji now normally everyone will want the gulab jamun and people will want to avoid the karela sabji now of course the bitter gourd vegetable may have some redeeming qualities it is generally quite healthy and it is nutritious but suppose we replace the two by nectar and poison so if on a buffet table and there was one place where nectar was being served and another place where poison was being served then you would expect everyone to rush towards the nectar and everyone to stay away from the poison and yet he is saying the exact opposite is happening sudhambari tejyavisham pivanti in this world people are giving up the nectar for the poison they are rushing towards the poison and thus are sentencing themselves to misery this is just imagination where does such a thing happen nobody will be so foolish as to give up poison for nectar so to give it a provocative metaphor then he tells what he is talking about he says this is nectar the name of Narayan is like sudha is like nectar and subjects not connected to Narayan he is comparing to poison how amazingly stupid is it that people are giving up Krishna's name for other subjects now why does he consider Krishna's name to be nectar and other subjects to be poison because of two reasons in terms of their content and their consequence let's first look at their consequence Krishna's name just like nectar is said to grant immortality so similarly Krishna's name grants immortality actually the soma juice or anything else that is called nectar doesn't make us immortal it just prolongs life and makes people believe that they have become immortal whereas Krishna's names actually grant immortality Krishna's names actually enable us to attain to attain eternal existence because chanting the names helps us to realize our spiritual identity and our spiritual connection with Krishna and thus by this we experience supreme enrichment now in contrast other words what do they do they actually cannot grant immortality rather the realization of such words causes often causes our attachment to worldly things to increase and causes also our incrimination in material existence by the laws of karma especially if the words we mouth are are motivated by lust or anger or greed and are karmically entangling so in terms of consequence Krishna's words words connected with Krishna especially his holy names Namaani, Narayana, Gocharavani especially his holy names are like nectar whereas in similar terms of consequence the words about things unconnected with Krishna about mundane subject matters are like poison now what about content or rather more specifically what about their taste because nectar has two characteristics that it is it grants it grants immortality and it is extremely sweet so Krishna's names are supremely sweet Guru Goswami says that Krishna's names are so sweet that I want thousands of mouths and millions of ears to chant his names and similarly other devotee poets tell the way the poet using similar extraordinary metaphors Kulshikar Maharaj himself compares the holy name to a flow of nectar he says the flow of nectar into our mouth will give us pleasure or honey rather madhu similarly he says the holy name will give pleasure now although the holy names are very tasty still it takes some time to perceive their taste because of our conditionings Guru Goswami gives the example just as a jaundiced tongue cannot taste sugarcane juice as sweet immediately similarly we may not taste the sweetness of Krishna's names immediately but still if we keep chanting just as a jaundiced vision keeps taking sugarcane juice eventually the sweetness will be realized now now other things does seem to can seem like nectar to us in our condition stage especially for example gossip you know what this person did you know what that person did gossip makes us temporary the center of attention makes us feel special as being privy to some knowledge privy to some knowledge that no one else has and thus it leads our ego but it doesn't it's essential substance it is it has no value in it it is like poison and especially as we become purified we start realizing that subjects about Krishna are so relishable and other subjects are so dry, so tasteless so pointless that we wonder why we ever spend any time discussing the other subject Om Shri Kriya Maharaj is at that exalted level of spiritual realization and thus he is telling us why are you infatuated with only subjects and instead of talking about Krishna and his names why are you thus giving up nectar for poison so meditating on his exaltation we can say visualize a buffet table where our mind misleads us from drags us to go away from the most delicious substance to the most foul tasting substance we would immediately rebel against anyone who would drag us towards such a fool similarly we can rebel against the mind whenever it urges us to go to stop talking about Krishna and start talking about mantras and by using our intelligence we can persevere in the practice of Krishna Bhakti and thus gradually and increasingly relish the next nectar that Kula Shekhar Maharaj is extolling over you Thank you.