Prajalpa I (with HG Radheshyam P)

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
keep all their footwear. Pages in our spiritual life, different subject matters and topics become very important for us. Srila Rupa Goswami said, understanding the need of the sadhakas practising Vastu Yoga, he has given the book Upadesha Amritam.
In Bhakti Rasamritha Sindhu, that book explains the science of devotional service. Whereas, the Upadesha Amritha book explains for sadhakas, beginning from control of the senses and avoiding the unfavourable agents in the field of Vastu and accepting the favourable items in the path of Vastu and also how to know the different levels of Vaishnavas and learn to associate with them nicely. All those things are taught in the Upadesha Amritha.
So, I have been doing in South India camp also for the southern invoices on this verse of In two days, we did a three-three with some Bhagavatam class also. But among them, according to me, you know, these items, my understanding, the youth require throwing light on few very important of these six items, which is Prajalpa and Prajalpa and Niyamagraha. What is Prajalpa? Useless talk, we will talk about it today.
And the other one is Niyamagraha means you know, following the rules for the sake of following without aiming at spiritual advancement or not following the rules and regulations. That is a very important thing. Because Niyamagraha also teaches about breaking a lesser principle for a greater principle and all that.
Often times, devotees commit mistakes in that zone. So, these two I consider to be very important. And another one very important is Janasandha.
Bad associations are the worst. So, in South India camp, I did Prajalpa and Janasandha, I did last year. This year they did Niyamagraha also.
And Athyahara and Prayas becomes important after your marriage. Those who are going to marry, you have to bother more about it when after marriage, Athyahara and Prayas become very important. Because they tend to over endeavour and accumulate too much by the inspiration of women who may not be devotees.
So, but in the student life, Prajalpa is very important. Prajalpa and Janasandha, these two are the most important. So, we won’t get so much time to cover all these things.
So, today in the morning session between 11.40 to 1.00, probably 1.00, 1.15, we have time for this. In Prajalpa, there are categories which we will see now. And also in the evening time, we have again time, probably a couple of hours.
So, we will try to complete the whole session. So, how we will be doing it? We will be showing you some of the texts given here. Before this, this is Bhaskarana Thakur’s writing in a book called Bhaktya Roka, where he explains about Prajalpa.
But before we approach Bhaskarana Thakur, we would like to see what Prabhupada says also. There are six things which Prabhupada says. Six things are unfavourable to bhakti and they destroy bhakti.
Athyahara is over-eating or over-accumulation. Prayasa is over-endeavour. And Prajalpa is useless gossip like a frog which is inviting the snake.
Similarly, people who do useless talk purposes, they invite the Kala Sarpa to follow them. And Nemagraha is not following the Vedic principles strictly or falling for the sake of following Vedic advancements. And Janasanga is bad association.
And Lauliyam is material greed for bhakti, mukti, siddhi and all that. So, what happens is when the Jiva comes to this world, he does Janasanga. He associates with bad people.
The result of that Janasanga is Lauliyam. What is it? Material greed is created. And when Lauliyam is created in his heart, then he does Prayasa.
He works very hard. For what purpose? For doing Athyahara. For accumulating more than his will.
For that he does Prayasa. And for doing Prayasa in Janasanga, what he does? He does Prajalpa. You know.
All the six are related also. So, we will only be talking about Prajalpa. So, it is said when Sanatana Goswami used to go in Vrindavan, he used to go to the homes of the Vrindavasis and sit there for some time and they would come and offer him milk to drink.
He would ask them how was your rains this year? How did your crops grow? He will do very nice. How is your son doing? Is your daughter married? So, it appears like Prajalpa what he would talk to the Vrindavasis. But actually, all the Vrindavasis were all Krishna’s devotees.
He considered Sanatana Goswami as their Guru. And naturally, Sanatana Goswami’s inspiration made them remember Krishna more and more. So, in the same manner, one devotee was asking me probably he was talking about detachment from parents.
Are we supposed to keep away from parents or develop some aversions for parents or what it is? I was telling him actually, even Kunti is saying in the Bhagavatam, actually our attachments for parents has to be purified. How it can be purified? You should give them Krishna consciousness and bring them closer to Krishna rather than they converting you into a materialist again and taking you into the world of matter. That’s all we have to do.
So, of course, when you go home imagine you talk only about Krishna. Like Lord Krishna who returned from Gaya. Where is Krishna? Who has seen Krishna? You go home in the holidays and say, Mother, where is Krishna? I don’t do any prasadam, I talk only about Krishna.
They will get confused, what happened to this fellow? So, you should not behave like a crazy person. You have to be level-headed. Level-headed means what? According to Deshchala Patra, sometimes if you have a sister or a brother, you have to ask them how is your studies going on? Mother wants some help in the kitchen, some grocery to be sought and everything.
So, you behave like anybody else in the world. That is why Lord Krishna said, Manage your business externally, meditate on Krishna internally. Manage your business.
Externally you should look like a Karmi. You know, speaking, behaving for the sake of pleasing your relatives and friends. Internally you should meditate on Krishna.
So, sometimes in order to please our relatives and friends, you have to speak certain things, which may be considered all right. But in the name of being practical, a devotee should not go to the extreme of becoming totally materialistic. And that you will come to know today.
What does that mean? Bhagavatam is very heavy about this. It says, those people who use their tongue for talking, use this tongue, their tongue is compared to the tongue of a frog. Those who don’t hear Krishna Ratha with their ears, their ears are compared to snake holes.
Those who have eyes, but don’t read the Shastras, their eyes are like, you know, like a wound in the, or like plumes of a peacock. Plumes of a peacock. Janaki says, it’s like a wound in the face.
Two wounds in the face. Because you are not using them for, you are not using them for studying Shastra. Like that he is saying, Janaki says.
So, like a Shavav Karvano Kuru says, if a rich lady is wearing lot of gold and silver bangles and showing to others, see how many bangles I am wearing, but she is not worshipping the temple of the Lord, you know, her hand is like, the hand of a dead body. Bhagavatam is very strong. So, in a Prajalpa, Vrindavan Shanti Sahasra, Bhagavatam says, that there are thousands of subject matters to be discussed by people, like politics and economics and sociology and cricket and sports and everything.
Except Krishna Consciousness, people want to talk about everything. So, Prabhupada says in one verse, this radio sound and TV sound is being telecast everywhere, distributed transcendental sound. So, we are living in an age of media madness.
We have so much of useless global gossip through internet and through television, through radio, radio Mirchi, and all these things going on. So, while living in this world, we should not become influenced by the tendency to do Prajalpa. By meeting with other boys, we should not get that tendency.
At the same time, among devotees, we should know how to speak according to Devasala Patra, about things that are necessary to be spoken. Devotees have to do management. Prabhupada says, management for Krishna is also Krishna Consciousness.
It is not Prajalpa. Even Nanda, Upananda, Nanda Sunanda, all of them are coming together, discussing about how to protect Krishna by moving from a dangerous place to a peaceful place. They are having a meeting in Sri Lanka.
That meeting is not Prajalpa, although it appears like management of the topic document for serving Krishna. At the same time, devotees should also talk about Krishna more directly also, like we were talking in Bhagavatam today. Direct talk about Krishna does not mean indirect talk about Krishna, but that is useless talk.
So, this Prajalpa is a very important topic because the tongue and our mind are connected. So, the tongue has two activities. One is to vibrate, one is to eat.
So, we should eat only prasadam and speak only glories of Krishna. These are the two activities of the tongue. And because the tongue and mind are connected, if you speak about Krishna, then the mind becomes filled with remembrance of Krishna.
If you speak nonsense with the tongue, the mind becomes filled with nonsense. So, they are connected. That is why we should cultivate the habit of speaking the glories of Krishna, pastimes of Prabhupada, whatever we have learnt, share with others.
Instead of using the tongue to vibrate useless things like talk there. There are four things which we have learnt today. Useless talk, arguing and debating, false finding and blasphemy.
There are four things. So, now Chaitanya Prabhu will give an introduction to the topic of Prajnaparamita for a few minutes. And then we will go through this material by Parasurama Thakur.
And we will not go through the whole thing because some of his language is a bit technical, which may not be necessary for you at this stage. But whatever is very important in this, we will definitely do. Very interesting.
So, the path of virtue and the path of wise is always open in all the ages. And the opportunity for Prajalpa is always there throughout the ages. In our times, what is the difference as compared to earlier times? This applies to all anarthas, lust, anger, greed.
And we will discuss how it applies to Prajalvas. Actually, in modern times, there are three major differences. In the path of wise, so if we apply Prajalva, Prajalva is culturally glamorised, intellectually rationalised and technologically facilitated.
I don’t know what to say. Culturally glamorised means actually just general knowledge about things which are absolutely irrelevant to people. That is glamorised.
And there is a term called information junkie. You know, what is the information junkie? It’s a person who knows a lot of junk information. Junk information.
So, I was seeing one devotee’s son’s school general knowledge book. And what was the question on general knowledge? Who is the woman who has slept with the maximum number of men in world history? A 7th standard child. What is the there is not even any utility.
There is actually contamination by this kind of knowledge. So, of course, this might be an extreme example. But it drives home the point that much of the information that we acquire is really useless.
But because of the social standards that are there, whenever there is a discussion between some people, everybody basically wants to show off how much aware I am of current situations. So, there is a cultural glamorisation of knowledge that is irrelevant, if not harmful. That comes because everybody starts saying this is very good.
We know so much. And apart from that, there is intellectual rationalisation. Intellectual rationalisation means if you start thinking, this knowledge must be really useful for me.
There are so many things I need to know. In the past, knowledge was determined or knowledge was primarily for action, for application. The people would learn about farming.
How do you implement? How do you dig? How do you plough? So, knowledge always was connected with its utility, its functionality. So, never before in the history of humanity have people had so much information about which there was no action to be done. There is no functional utility of much of the information that we have.
For example, if we say that how many daughters does so and so film star have? Actually, how does it matter to anyone? So, this is, sociologists call this the information-action ratio. And actually, when we get a lot of information about which we can do no action, not only does it swamp our mind, but it also makes us feel helpless. For example, a bomb exploded in Iraq or say the American ambassador was killed in Africa or there was a hurricane in America.
Now, just think, if people read the daily newspaper, how much of the news that they read is going to change what they are going to do on that day or the next day or even the next month for that matter. Very little. So, actually speaking, all the information that we acquire, its utility for us is near zero.
But somehow, oh, we should be aware of current affairs. Certainly, we should not be completely ignorant of things. But it is not that everything that happens everywhere, we need to keep ourselves abreast of it.
So, it’s sort of intellectually rationalised. We have to be up-to-date. And the whole concept of general knowledge, which is there today, it is actually general trivial knowledge.
Trivial knowledge is just information that is not relevant to most people. The simple test of relevance would be how much is this knowledge going to change what I am going to do in my life today or tomorrow or whatever. So, practically none.
And then people have so much useless information that they have to put it to some use. So, there are these shows like Kaun Pannanga Enega Karolpati. You know, they are artificial context invented for useless information.
First, people get so much useless information, they don’t know what to do with that. So, normally, there was a context. Okay, I am living in a city.
I need to know what is the map. I need to know who is staying where. So, information had a context with it.
But then, I acquire information that has no context with connection with my life. So then, to use that information, I invent a context. If you see, most of the questions that are there in this sort of quiz programme, they are completely useless questions.
That knowledge is of no use to anyone. So, what we do is, we live in a particular context and we start acquiring knowledge which has nothing to do with that context. And then we invent a context, a pseudo-context, where we will use that knowledge.
And when we use that knowledge over there successfully, we think I am very clever, I am very intelligent, I am very fortunate. So, it’s not that when we are saying that we shouldn’t do Prajalba, we are just saying something very impractical, we should be disconnected with the world. But actually, our knowledge that we get, that itself is disconnected from our real life.
We are simply saying that let’s stay, have knowledge which keeps us well connected with what we acquire. So certainly, it’s not that if there is a terrorist riot in Calcutta, we should not be aware. It’s not like that.
But whatever is not beyond the practical necessity, what is the relevance? So, as I said, it just burdens our mind, sometimes it makes us feel helpless. Oh, this, this, this, this. So, the daily news, at the end of it, they may describe disasters, they may describe wars, they may describe natural calamities, and at the end of it, they say, please join us tomorrow.
You know, come on, after I have heard so much destruction, that they should give a normal person sleepless nights for days, weeks. But we read about it, and as they say, the death of one person is a tragedy. The death of a thousand people is a statistic.
The death of one person, it is known to us, it’s a tragedy. But the death of a thousand people is a statistic. Because it’s just not relevant.
No. Certainly, any person who dies, that’s sad, but what happens is, we just get bombarded with so much news that is irrelevant to us. It just becomes a statistic.
So, it is, as I said, intellectually rationalised. Oh, you have to be aware, and then we create contexts where we try to use that information, which is actually unconnected and useless. And thirdly, it is technologically facilitated.
How is that? Even 100-150 years ago, the fastest that news could spread was at the rate at which transportation could happen. Maybe it was a, we are not talking about Vedic times, when people had mystic powers by which they could acquire knowledge. But in recent history, if we see, that would be as fast as a bullock cart or a train could go.
But, from the time of the telegraph onwards, which was 100 years ago, the whole availability of information, of irrelevant information has increased so much that now, because of the internet, within moments, we can get knowledge, information from every corner of the world. This happened here, this happened here, this happened here. So, what does this news do? There is a sociologist who has said that the news is actually nothing new.
It is the same old things happening to new people. News is same old things happening to new people. Basically, what are the things that happen in this world? There is old age, disease and death.
And before that, somebody wins something, somebody loses something. Somebody has some happiness, somebody has some distress. So, actually, it is the same old things happening to new people, we call that news.
So, actually, there is nothing new about the news. But, because the news from everywhere is so easily available that our tendency for Prajalba becomes technologically facilitated. So, technology gives us so much facility for doing Prajalba about anything and everything that is happening practically everywhere.
So, that’s why, as sadhakas, we would like to keep our focus on we have a practical worldly life which we have to live. Whatever information we require for that, we can surely have that. So, but beyond that, just mundane awareness, that doesn’t serve any purpose.
So, on the other hand, we focus on Krishna consciousness, on Krishna conscious knowledge and application. One last consequence of this information bombardment, as I said, we are living in a society where information action ratio is very low. So much information is shown into action.
And the consequence of this, carries over into our spiritual life. There, we also want to acquire a lot of information, but we don’t do any action about what we already know. So, okay, what is said in this book? What is said in that book? What is said in that book? Radhe Shambhu was yesterday telling me that, Vijayadvait Maharaj once asked a question, that he asked three, four, okay, what does this, this, this, this mean? So, Maharaj said, that’s not a question, that’s a quiz.
Next question? So, basically just you go on and on, just, okay, what is this? One boy was testing Maharaj, Maharaj, in Krishna book, I saw three words, Jalpa, Upajalpa and Prajalpa. What is the difference between these three? Maharaj said, that’s more of a quiz than a question. Next question is that.
Because, that you can always find out yourself. If you have real life questions, to apply in life, you ask me. So, of course, we can be philosophically inquisitive and learn information, but the point here is that, often, because of our infatuation with information, we forget the application part.
And we just think spirituality is about acquiring more and more and more information. And over a period of time, we will start feeling that, oh, there’s not much information in Krishna Consciousness. Whatever information is there, I know about it.
And then we will start getting bored. But the boredom is not because there is no newness. The information is for action.
The action is developing a relationship with Krishna. So, when we use the information in Krishna Consciousness for developing a relationship with Krishna, the newness in Krishna Consciousness will come, not from the newness of the information, but the newness of our connection with Krishna. As we deepen our relationship with Krishna, we are able to connect with him deeper and deeper.
And that will bring newness in our life. And that newness is spiritual. On the other hand, if we just keep acquiring more and more and more information, even within spiritual circles, if our service requires that, surely we can do that.
But that newness is connected with Krishna, so it’s not entirely mundane. But still, because it’s just information, it is not necessarily helping us to connect with Krishna at the level of the heart. And that’s why it won’t lead us to much substantial spiritual advancement or transformation.
So that’s why, as I said, what are three things? Why is modern age more dangerous for practising spiritual life? It’s culturally glamorised, intellectually rationalised, and technologically facilitated. That’s why we have to be more cautious in this age when we are practising spiritual life. And when we are applying this principle of avoiding prashanthas.
Basically, I talked about this. When you talk about culturally glamorised, people just praise and glorify those who are considered to be very knowledgeable, very aware. And most of the knowledge is useless, it’s trivial, irrelevant to us.
When I talk about intellectual rationalisation, there are two things in that. First is that we just value through our education, through our culture, general knowledge, which is general trivial knowledge. And second is that we create artificial pseudo-contexts like quizzes, just enquiring based on useless information.
And then I talked about this knowledge is technologically facilitated. We have internet, by which information from anywhere and everywhere can easily come and swamp our mind. And this will lead us to value information for information’s sake, not for action’s sake, not for application’s sake.
And that will have a detrimental effect on intellectual consciousness. You can read that. You see.
One lady was good, clear, white, loud, clear. Rijalpa. Talking with one another is called Jalpana or Rijalpa.
Nowadays, in this world of godlessness, in this world, godlessness is so prominent that conversing with others means godless talk. Therefore, it is not profitable for a practising devotee to engage in Jalpana. There can, however, be many kinds of Jalpana in the cultivation of devotional service.
They are all auspicious for the devotees. The devotees can talk about Krishna and Krishna-related things. Like you see in Chaitanya Bhagawad, when devotees would come in the morning, behind the house of Srivastava there used to be vines where flowers used to sprout.
So, when devotees would be coming to pluck flowers, either they would be chanting Krishna’s name or they would be talking something about Krishna. You see. If you read in Chaitanya Bhagawad, you will see what was the culture at that time and now.
It was very, very natural for them to talk about Krishna. Similarly, in the evening, Rama entered the Mahabharata and all that. But now, he says, Bhagwan Thakur says, it is becoming godless atmosphere.
Talking to, in the trains, buses, you go, people are exchanging cricket scores. They are doing Shravanam and Kirtanam of cricket scores. Hearing the scores and sharing with others.
In India, Pakistan, World Cup match was going on. All over Bombay, roads were empty practically. Everybody is glued to the TV.
Yahoo! You hear the sound. Everywhere you saw that. So, the material emotions are being awakened.
These are made into a soup by three modes of material nature. In the awakening, the spiritual emotions in people, they are awakening. Sangalam Rai’s material emotions are unfortunately everywhere.
So, modern man brought the TV into India by cheating people saying that we will show you Ramayana Mahabharata and everything. But then, gradually, eventually, other than Ramayana Mahabharata and 99 nonsense things are coming out of TV. Of course, if you want to see Lord Venkateshwar or Harsh Vahanam, you can see also on TV.
Most of it is going on now. Every day they are showing. But those channels are very few.
You take the 120 channels. How many are materialistic channels? How many are spiritual channels that you see? So, even I had gone to my sister’s home. I saw half an hour she wanted to show me some Krishna serial.
She said every week, 2 or 3 times. Anyway, for her satisfaction, I saw for some time. Out of half an hour, only 10 minutes was about Krishna.
There, 20 minutes, there is somebody talking or some advertisement. Whatever punya you get by seeing is finished off by all the advertisements. You know.
I asked her, sister, do you really believe you can become a devotee by seeing this? She said, I also don’t know what to do. She said, I see it and in between I change the channel and go somewhere else. Because the advertisements are over.
So, TVs are bombarding. I said, he was rightly saying. You know, like one man turns around and says, here is a quiz for you.
If you know the answer to this, send in this SMS. My father was telling, I feel like taking a rod and beating on his head. He said, how many times this fellow comes? Within half an hour, he comes 20 times.
Same thing, again and again. Very stylishly, wearing a coat. And the question is such a trivial question.
Get fed up. Even the karmis are fed up. Can you imagine? Devotees will die only.
You know. If materialistic people are fed up, you can imagine. So, it’s such bombardment everywhere.
So, that’s why he is saying that. But there is also, he says, there are many kinds of jalpana in the cultivation of devotion. It’s not that devotees don’t have any fun or joy in sharing with each other.
They are not like Mouni Baba sitting in Himalayas, you know, doing their own tapasya. Devotees surely talk to each other. There can be direct devotional talk, glorification of Krishna.
And there can be talk which is in relation to the material life of devotees that can affect spiritual life also. I was just telling a devotee, one of my relatives, my sister’s daughter is searching for a job in Pune. So, I had to help.
Because she is a relative, she expects that, you know, some help will be offered. So, I just called up the congregation devotees and told them, please help her to get a job. And they helped also.
It’s a material help. Somebody may say, can you ask for a material help from a sadhu? But then, my goal in helping her and getting a job through the congregation is so that she will become a devotee of Krishna. Now, when she used to write a letter very soon, you know, it used to be like a materialistic letter.
Now, I am seeing the letter beginning, I find PAMHO. At the end of the letter, your servant and everything has come. Within one week, can you imagine? Because by the influence of devotees, she is learning the language of a devotee.
So, in this way, if we are offering some material help to a devotee, that helps her. If you know that for a devotee, material life and spiritual life are inseparable. Imagine, if your mom came poor during the exams, can you be dancing in Guru Pooja very happily? You will not have so much energy.
All my friends got in this season, I got so much. But if you got very good marks in the exams, you will be dancing very ecstatically, jumping and touching the ceiling. Isn’t it? It affects.
You can see the material life of devotees. Devotees’ material and spiritual life are connected. So, we can talk about career, we can talk about devotees’ marriage, we can talk about devotees’ geographic locations, etc.
Because they are closely connected to his spiritual life. So, that is also facilitating devotional service. Read this further.
Girtans, offering prayers and reciting the scriptures are all Jalpana. But when these are performed with a favourable mood and devoid of material desire, then they are all cultivation of Krishna consciousness. Therefore, the conclusion is this.
All Prajalpas that are unfavourable to Krishna’s service are adverse to devotional service. A practitioner should carefully give up Prajalpa. There is no fault in the activities of Mahajanas.
The Mahajanas have respectfully engaged in Prajalpa, favourable to devotional service, and this is our only duty. Prajalpa is not a derogatory word. Prajalpa itself is not a bad word.
But Prajalpa for non-devotional talks. That is fundamental. Now, how Mahajanas are engaged, you tell now.
Go ahead. Sometimes, most of devotees advise that all types of Prajalpa should be given up. But we are the followers of Srila Rupa Goswami.
Being followers of Rupa Goswami, we will always stick to the path shown by sadhus who are following his instructions. Godless Prajalpas are impediments to devotional service. They are of many types.
Useless talks, arguments, gossip, debate, fault-finding in others, speaking falsehood, blaspheming devotees, and worldly talks are all called Prajalpa. Useless talk is extremely detrimental. A practising devotee should discuss topic of Lord Hari in the association of other devotees.
And remember Hari’s name, form, qualities, and pastimes in a secluded place without uselessly wasting time. A secluded place means in Sangha of devotees. Right now, we are in a secluded place.
We are not in a market place or railway station. Or in a place where materialistic people are criticising devotees. Because sometimes, we try to hold a spiritual programme in a public place like a college.
One-time programme and all. But, like I remember, in one of the colleges, I had gone to give a one-time programme. After the programme, the organiser became very, very disturbed.
Not with me, but due to some reason. I privately took him and asked what happened. He said, they are joking about me organising this programme.
What are they saying? They are calling our college as Bhagwa. After I heard this, my mind is very disturbed. Because materialistic people are criticising me.
I am trying to do good godly work. Then I told him, if you are trying to do good work in this world, there will always be some bad elements who will mock at you. For that matter, I told him, even Duryodhana mocked at Krishna.
When Krishna was sitting on the chariot, Arjuna carried a charioteer. Just before the war, Duryodhana said, Hey, Dwarakadheesh, are you not ashamed to become a chariot driver of Arjuna? Duryodhana, when I came to Dwaraka, I have seen you sitting on elevated asana with amrala above your head and all your men showering flowers on you, glorifying you as a king. And now you are sitting as a chauffeur of Duryodhana.
Are you not ashamed? That is the first question Duryodhana asked in the battle of Kurukshetra. And the answer Krishna gave was only a smile, that’s all. Krishna never replied to this question.
Because you may call me a sentimental fool for becoming a servant of Arjuna, but I don’t care for non-devotees like you. You say whatever you want. I will continue to serve my devotees.
So, I told this professor, don’t take the words of the materialist seriously. That is why we don’t talk on very great advanced spiritual subjects in a public place. When devotees come together, that’s why if you set out a place without wasting time, we talk about Hari’s qualities very directly.
Otherwise it will become 9th offence, you know. When you are telling the top glories of the Lord, you are trying to justify your speech. Do you want to add anything? So, in the name, we certainly don’t want to indulge in useless talk.
But at the same time, that doesn’t mean we have to become insensitive. There are, as I said, there are basic human or functional concerns that are there. For example, if a friend comes to us and we talk to him, how are you doing? How is your life? Basic enquiry, that’s the nature of a human being.
And that is a part of basic courtesy. It’s not that we give that up. But what we are talking about is, as a matter of fashion, people engage in so much discussion, which is irrelevant.
So, that is what has to be given up. So, the human or functional discussion, that is fine. And beyond that, whatever is functionally conscious, we discuss it.
That way, we don’t get into our mind things which will unnecessarily stay there and distract us from the remembrance of Krishna. So, prajalpa, we will discuss a little later, what are the consequences of that. One of the things is that, in general, Krishna is far away and the material world is close to us.
So, because of that, the more the things around in the material world influence us much more. They affect our mind much more when Krishna is far away. So, we are trying to develop a philosophical vision by which what we see in this world, we can connect with Krishna.
But, most of the time, when we take mundane information, it is just about the agitations of this world without any Krishna connection. And because this world is much closer to us, so what happens here affects us much more. And even if we say that, okay, if I read a newspaper, I will get more realisation of how this world is a dukkhaalaya vishashtami.
I will see how so much misery is there in this world. Well, okay, you can read a newspaper one day and you will get the realisation. You don’t have to read a newspaper every day for that.
So, just if somebody is requiring it for a job interview or something like that, then some brief awareness of the headlines and then that might be useful. But in general, we are trying to take our vision from this world towards Krishna. But when we get too caught up in this world, then it agitates and preoccupies our mind so that we can’t think of Krishna.
He is already far away. He is already invisible to us. That’s why we focus on that which is necessary for our functional or human purposes.
And beyond that, we focus on our Krishna conscious discussion and Krishna conscious topics. We applaud you. We applaud you.
… … … … … … … … Is this long? Yes. … I was in Bangalore for a training session and a meeting. Bangalore? How is it? By the way, how is the weather there? Bangalore? It’s awesome.
It’s so cool. It’s so chill. Bangalore is known as the AC city of India.
AC. You mean to say? Bangalore. Every room, every shop has AC.
No, no. It’s not like that. Actually the weather of Bangalore is so chill and cool that it appears as if the AC is on.
Oh, I have never been to Bangalore. I have always been staying in this Pune. It is so scorching hot here.
That is why Prabhu, you know, I will explain. That is why I was telling to all these PAC members that our voice headquarters should not be in such a hot place. Our voice headquarters should be in a cool place like Bangalore.
You see, here in such heat, who will come and hear Bhagavatam? People will hear Bhagavatam or they will worry about their bodily comforts. I mean to say necessities. Yeah, that’s true indeed.
Therefore, Kavi Prabhu, by your association, I have got this revelation. Let us take this project very seriously. You know, I will become the project advisor to Bangalore and I will keep you project manager.
But please cooperate. So, what we will do is that today only we will write an email to Radhe Shyam Prabhu explaining about our wonderful excursions on to Bangalore. I think you really understood the subject.
So, I will just go freshen up and then we will in detail discuss about the subject. This is a very important issue. Isn’t it? Govind Prabhu ji, you know, Bangalore is such a cool place, Prabhu.
We will get thousands of devotees. In Krishna Consciousness, preaching will explode. Everything is alright.
Prabhu, I am saying that so many preaching opportunities. Let us go at the hub, at the main place, Head for the Rhino of Bangalore. But why all of a sudden you are speaking all this? Spiritual life.
What happened? Yours? Compassion for others. Spiritual life in a hot place. Nightmare.
That is why Bangalore is such a cool place. The AC city. So, what do you feel about this idea? I thought all the colleges of Pune are closed.
That is why you want to move to Bangalore. Do you think just because the weather is very good, we can preach there? Yes, Prabhu. Come, Prabhu.
My dear, Ravi Prabhu. Yes, Prabhu. Can you do it? Yes, Prabhu.
Right here. You will certainly go. But Radhe Shyam will take it for Pune.
Do you think this weather is good and conditions are alright, anyone will be ready to hear your Bhagavatam classes? Yes, Prabhu. People will be very comfortable over there. Yes, Prabhu.
One will feel that they are unhappy, they are suffering. Don’t you feel like this? No. So, still you want to go to Bangalore only for preaching? Okay.
Actually, what we can do, we can call all the Bangalore ghost devotees here in Pune and we can do a nice camp. Correct? You have opened my eyes. Thank you, Lord Krishna.
Thank you, Lord Krishna and be happy. Hare Krishna. See, amongst devotees, what is called useless talk.
Like they showed in the drama, talking about climate, talking about rain, talking about heat of the sun. People sometimes think that we are associating with other devotees by talking about these things. This is not counted as association.
Like the last devotee was telling that, you know, it is not the climate that is going to change the people’s nature. Whether it is hot or cold or all these things. People want to hear, they will hear.
I have also seen amongst devotees, sometimes people talking about Christian missionaries, which are preaching in different parts of India. Little bit of talk may be alright. But talking too much about it, oftentimes produces envy in the hearts of devotees.
And they become very barbaric in the mind. They think more about how to pull their leg than to peacefully preach our own knowledge. Talking about such kind of, or talking about which politician is up.
I heard that when in Andhra Pradesh there was a YSR, you know, YSRD. Later on he died in a helicopter accident and all that. So the Christians converted him and they made him into a Christian.
Of course he was supporting Christians also. At one time there was a picture of Jesus put up in Tirupati hill. For one week it remained.
And many Hindus opposed, but nobody had the guts to oppose the CM. Anyway after one week they removed it by political pressure and all that. But the Christians are trying to capture the top people, politicians, so that they can keep them in their grip.
But the result is, now you see, Iskcon is opposed to some current political party. You see, now the current political party has become antagonistic to Christianity. You know that? They are saying that Jagan is opposing the current political party and he is supporting Christians.
So the current political party is now anti-Christian. You understand, no? That is the reason why Iskcon does not take to any particular political party at all. So Iskcon belongs to who, Congress or BJP, what do you say? Iskcon is Krishna party.
Iskcon doesn’t belong to any party. If a Congress man comes to a temple, we will welcome him. BJP man comes, we will welcome him.
Any kind of party. No one should come. In Pune, in our Pune New Temple, NVCC, one Suresh Kalmadi was helping us.
He is a politician in Pune. And he gave a little help to us and he could have given us more help also. But he had put one condition.
He said, if I do that help, you have a congregation of 5000 people. You should promise me that these 5000 votes will come to me. He said.
And I asked about this to Shamanand Prabhu. Shamanand Prabhu said, no, we cannot promise anyone this kind of thing. Nor can we announce to the congregation, please vote for this fellow.
We can’t do that. Because we are absolutely free from any politics. So, why I am telling you this, we as devotees do not get into this kind of useless talk about, like why we talk about sometimes Christians, Muslims and all these things.
Sometimes we talk, even in our lectures we talk sometimes to know the history of India. But it should not be too much. It’s really not.
Because if one gets into too much, then the Hindutva, and the mood that Garuda said, Oh, I am a Hindu. This kind of thoughts will come and they will reinforce our bodily consciousness. That is why they are useless talk.
Like for example, RSS, GST, they are doing some work for Hindu religion. Now, they had a big identity crisis at one time. Then they wanted to start RSS in America.
So, my friend in my college days, one Krishnakumar, we both wanted to become missionaries in our life. So, I joined ISKCON and he joined RSS group. And he is in Sanskrit Zapati, spreading Sanskrit.
So, he told me, in America you cannot call RSS as RSS. You know that? Why? Because Rashtriya is different. They have a different name there.
So, what they call it? Anybody know the name? Yeah? No. In America, they have a different name. Because America Rashtriya is not their Rashtriya.
Their Rashtriya is India. So, they have different name group. But the idea is what? RSS or GST, they are doing a lot of good work to protect the Hindu culture and avoid the Muslim invasion into India.
It’s very good. I asked, how many people are there in Indian Army? They said, about 5 lakh people. They said, India’s population is 120 crores.
And only a few lakh people are referred in the Army. We are not against the Kshatriya’s team which protects India, which is very necessary for every nation. I used to tell the boys, if you are too much concerned about protection of India, you better become a soldier and join the Army.
Or become an Indian Air Force and join the Air Force. Don’t waste your time simply talking about Hindus, Muslims, Christians. Some people, one of the Dhramachars in Pune, became extremely frightened about Muslim invasion.
Like the Jackie Mayaka, somebody is preaching now in many places. So, this devotee became so frightened, he couldn’t sleep only in the night. And in Pune, one of the last 5-6 devotees, secretly watched a video of Christian preaching.
For one hour or two hours, what all they are doing in India. Then I called those fellows, twisted their ears and told them, how many of you, each of you, I will give you one voice to run. Go and do it.
They are not doing preaching work. They are not studying proper books. They are not going and preaching.
But they are wasting their time watching this video. You understand what I am saying? I asked them, if you are upset with Christian preaching, what are you doing to expand preaching? They are not bringing one devotee also. But they are wasting their time watching the video.
You understand what I am saying? If you are really concerned that Krishna consciousness is spread and Christians are degrading the culture of India, then you do preaching. You study and preach. You are allowed to preach.
They are allowed to preach. If you are really smart in preaching, you will influence a lot of people. They are especially trying to preach among the IITians, because they are intelligent people and they are likely to take it ahead to many other people.
They are doing quite a good job. But we should be doing our part and not become overly disturbed by other religions. You understand? Then it becomes useless.
Sometimes devotees talk 3-4 hours about Christians are doing this, Christians are doing this. Useless talk. Simply useless talk.
Similarly, talking about climate, talking about food. Sometimes we talk about prasadam. Okay, today was festival and prasadam was wonderful.
Hari bol, very nice. And who can talk a lot about prasadam? The kitchen department. They have the right to talk.
Because that is their seva. They have to talk about the quality of prasadam, how to improve and what to do. Other people, if you have an idea, just go and give it to them.
Your idea and go on. Otherwise, sometimes devotees get into a room. Now somebody may say, Babaji, in Chaitanya Charitamrita also a lot of verses are given about prasadam.
You become pure devotee like the candidates in Chaitanya Charitamrita, then you can also talk. Isn’t it? First we have to rise above our material platform. So, when we, sometimes people start talking about the glory of Ayurveda, that will come eventually, you will see the drama.
I will show you. Ayurveda, Udalapati. So, there are many, and also there are controversial subjects which are also called useless talks.
Whether the Jiva fell from Vaikuntha or from Brahmajyoti. Like one of the devotees, recently, he had resorted to this internet pornography, this thing. And he wrote a long letter to me.
He said, Babaji, somehow I had a lot of talk among 3-4 of us about Jiva’s fall. I said, whenever you have such doubt, you should go to authority. This one, GBC Press has published a book called as Our Original Position.
Read that book. I spoke about this topic recently in Poonam also. Read on that book.
Go to authority. Then they will clarify you. It becomes very simple.
But this fellow was twisting his head and talking among devotees. The result is, he started having doubts on Krishna. Krishna exists.
The spiritual world exists. All these things are true. That Brahmajyoti is ultimate.
He is not devil there. The result is, he fell prey to his habit. Bad habit.
Twisting the head unnaturally gives useless information. And some poor ignorant fellows talking among themselves. Will it help? Go to somebody wise.
That they won’t do. That is useless talk. If poor fellows are talking and they don’t know beyond this level, what is the use of talking and arguing? One should not unnecessarily… Like one fellow, he was a very good teacher in Bombay, many years.
And at one point of time, he became deviated by some Babaji, Vrindavan or somebody, who told him that I will give you Siddhi Pranali. I will give you your Siddha Deha information and everything. And he was telling me, I feel that Niskanth is getting too much delayed.
I am chanting for last 10-12 years. I want to get my Siddha Deha. I think I need a more advanced Guru.
One another Guruji is telling in Vrindavan. Then he told him, see, within Niskanth there are people who can give you very advanced knowledge about Krishna Tattva. If you want to go to Mahanadi Maharaj, go to Radha Govind Maharaj, go to Gaur Govind Maharaj.
These kind of people, I told him, they speak very deeply. Of course, he didn’t. Instead, he went and he completely went astray.
He was having practically 5-6 nice teaching programmes in Bombay. Practically, he was touching lives of 3-400 people. And then when he went to Vrindavan and became a deviant, all the people gave him up.
They said, you have to become a deviant now. We don’t want to follow you. Now after 3-4-5 years of being in Vrindavan and following Prabhupadaji, he got tired of Prabhupadaji and came back to Bombay.
Now he is sitting at home alone. Now he is reading Prabhupada’s books, chanting. And when he goes to preach, everybody is running away from him.
Nobody wants to come here. How this fellow became like what he became? He is like Poonam Shikubhava. He was a small person.
Krishna empowered him. He was rendering useless talk and wasting time. Now he came back to, you know, what he was doing.
Devotees, you should be careful not to indulge in talks about such kind of Shri Vishwanali talks. Why do you talk to people who are ignorant fellows? Talk to somebody who knows, who can enlighten you in case you have doubts. If your mind is having a curiosity, to talk about Allah, Krishna and Virat, you can go to somebody like Mahananda Maharaj, or there are people who can write about that.
You ask them. They will tell you more. Don’t talk to your level fellows.
Two ignorant fellows coming to you and talking. Any help? It’s a useless thing. Similarly, talking on controversial topics, like one time some devotee came to Poonam and said in lecture, anybody knows what is the Yuga Dharma for Kali Yuga? Everybody said, chanting of the holy name, everybody.
No. Yuga Dharma for Kali Yuga is association of devotees. And he went away.
Gave that lecture. After that big talk in the ashram, people sitting in kutis, people sitting here and chatting so much money. One thing, Yuga Dharma was talking.
Yuga Dharma, we heard Radheshampu was telling, the other day, Yuga Dharma is chanting of the holy name, this devotee is saying, Yuga Dharma is association of devotees, everybody is saying different things. What is true? We don’t know. Somehow the world got around to my ears also.
Somebody told me. Then when it came, then I showed that quote of Parashara Saraswati, where he says, although we say Yuga Dharma, chanting of the holy name, chanting of the holy name cannot be done in satsang, it can be done only in association of devotees. That is why Yuga Dharma is chanting in association of devotees.
This was, this became, people wasted four hours arguing on this. So, Yuga Dharma talks, not only is about talking about sports, talking about cinema actors, but even amongst devotees that can be useless talk. So, one more drama? You haven’t used this talk, one more you have? No, only one.
Ok, then we will read this one. Please read it. In Bhagavad Gita.
In Bhagavad Gita, 10.8, You want any bigger than this? I will tell you. 9.14, it is said, aham sarvasya vacchita sadatam kirtayanto ma In this way, the practising devotee should cultivate unalloyed devotion. If they spend their days and nights uselessly talking with materialists, then the Lord’s instruction, always chanting my glories, will not be followed.
In newspapers, there is so much useless talk. For the practising devotee, to read newspaper is a great loss. But if there are topics about pure devotees described in a newspaper, then that can be read.
After finishing their meals, mundane people normally smoke and engage in useless talk with other godless people. It is certainly difficult for them to become followers of Shri Arup Goswami. Reading novels is the same.
But if one gets a novel with a story like that of Puranjana or Srimad Bhagavatam, then reading that is not an impediment. Rather, it is beneficial. Krishna says, My devotees always chant my glories.
vacchita madh gata prana sadatam kirtayanto ma Like that Krishna says. So, if you are doing useless talk, Krishna’s statement will be disproven. Is it not? So, if you claim you are Krishna’s devotees, then we should always 24×7 keep our officers absorbed in talking about Krishna.
There was one Radha Konda Prabhu who was Swapaji’s disciple. Now he is late. Radha Konda Prabhu.
He passed away. So, he was telling me, in the early days of this form, when he had joined, you know, devotees, one moment he would not wait. And he said, you will never find a devotee without a bead bag.
He said. He showed me in the old day photos. You will not find devotees without bead bag.
Everywhere they will carry bead bag when they go. And he said, when they go for book distribution also, they would carry a Krishna book and go to the van and immediately one devotee would start reading some Krishna book. Immediately.
Some pastimes of Krishna. They would be here and they would get out of the van and they would distribute the books and do Harinaam and then come back. Even while drinking milk in the night, different devotees would tell different pastimes of Krishna.
He was telling. And the ashram was filled with Krishna talk or Prabhupada talk. Anywhere you go, every moment, something related to Krishna.
So he said, you cannot hear one mundane sound vibration in the ashram, temple, anywhere. But he said, now I am seeing in this one days or 10 years or past, so many other mundane sound vibrations I am able to hear. He was telling, people are talking too much about Yoga Asana, too much about body, people are talking too much about health issues, people are talking too much about comforts and luxuries.
But actually he said, it is not wrong to do something for health. You can take Medicline, you can have a health room, surely. It is not wrong to do Yoga Asana.
You can do 15-20 minutes Yoga Asana. But these things cannot be our main subject for contemplation and talk. You know devotees are, when they are talking about, sometimes devotees are worried about their future, devotees are worried about money, some other things.
So he said that, so far times, all over the world, wherever there was a temple, people were reading Krishna, chanting his name, doing, you know, people are, all the time they are asking how to improve their future life. He said that, all devotees have to, he said, we have to improve the consciousness in our modern day temple. So, yes, when you are cultivating devotees and become a part of devotees families, sometimes we have to talk about health and other things.
But we have to watch our own talk. What are we talking? How are we spending time? Sometimes, I think we, we spend too much time in talking about the mundane things for, it is called as Yoga and Kshema. Yoga and Kshema means for our maintenance and protection.
We talk a lot about the body and we talk a little about Krishna. Is it only my feeling? How many of you feel so? You feel that? Correct, no? Yeah. Yoga and Kshema is whose business? For a devotee? Oh, who? Krishna, he says, Yoga, Kshema, Bahami, who? Aham, he says.
I do that. So, devotees, it is not that we throw away everything to him. We make some arrangement and then leave it to Krishna.
We cannot, too much, worry about protection and maintenance. So, that is why he is saying that devotees should absorb. He is saying about newspaper, novels, movies and all these things we avoid, which we all are already avoiding.
But if something is related to Krishna, we may watch. Like we have this Bukkana movie, Pillu Magal movie, many Radha Gopinath temple dramas are there, very nice dramas. So, something is enlivening, inspiring, even we show video to our son-in-law’s wife, Krishna Siddhama video.
Something like that you can see. We are not against using laptops, projectors, against reading novels, as long as they are inducing more Krishna consciousness in us. A very nice statement.
A couple of points, we had in the earlier thing also, about ISKCON’s political non-accumulation. See, basically, we have, to maintain society, there is a Brahminical role and a Kshatriya role. So, politics is predominantly Kshatriya active.
And traditionally also, the Brahmins would give advice to Kshatriyas, but they would not affiliate with a particular Kshatriya. Those who would affiliate, those who would become official priests for a particular thing, they would be considered to be lower level Brahmins and those who would not affiliate. And Prabhupada, officially made a policy that ISKCON would not be affiliated with any organisation.
So, in Belgao, we had one BJP member who became an ISKCON devotee. And, he was going to become an MLA from that area. And then, he asked, he was a 16th round initiated devotee.
So, he asked the leader over there, Bhaktira Samad Maharaj, he said that, you know, can you ask the devotees to vote for me? So, he said, if I get elected, I will do a lot for Krishna Consciousness. I will be practising a lot. So, Maharaj said, Maharaj told that, you know, you are a devotee, and this is your profession.
So, for a devotee, his profession is spiritual. That’s why we have our good wishes. But at an official level, we cannot support him.
So, at an unofficial level, through word of mouth, if a devotee is in an election, other devotees will vote for him. That is okay. So, what to speak of some other party, some materialist of a particular party, even if a devotee joins a particular party, ISKCON cannot directly, officially support him.
Unofficially, of course, it can be done. But officially, that is very important for ISKCON’s stable preaching prospect, that it will be politically non-affiliated. Now, regarding Christian conversions, I personally used to get very agitated earlier about the way Christians are converting or about how Muslims are being aggressive.
So, I talked with several senior devotees about it. So, essentially, again, we have to decide whether Shri Prabhupada established ISKCON permanently as a Brahminical organisation. That is, we train Brahmanas who will become preachers and who will become exemplary citizens of society.
Now, that’s what we will get in ISKCON. That’s what we can expect from ISKCON. That’s what we should do in ISKCON.
Now, Raja Adi Shambhu said, if somebody wants to join the army, he can join the army. That’s one way one can play a Kshatriya role. So, if one wants to play a Kshatriya role, play that Kshatriya role for Raja Adi.
But, you know, if we are playing a Brahminical role and then we worry about Kshatriya issues, we will unnecessarily agitate our men. So, neither will we be able to do any Brahminical role. See, Brahmana can inspire a Kshatriya, but Brahmana cannot do the Kshatriya’s job.
So, what Brahmana should do? If you want to inspire, do something. Don’t just keep talking. Like I was also telling, I was very, very, I used to get very disturbed in my college days seeing the condition of students.
They are degrading, boy-girl relationship, and boys drinking, smoking. So, what I did, I decided in my life, I will not marry. I will take a Brahmachari life and go college to college and preach and make lot of students into devotees.
Of course, in those days, I didn’t know what is a devotee. So, I was thinking that I will make boys of very high character, pure character. They will lead a pure life.
So, in my life, what I did? I became Brahmachari last 20-25 years. This is what I am doing. So, if you think something should happen in the country, what is the first thing you should do? You do it yourself.
Yeah. If you dedicate your life, don’t keep talking. Do something, Prabhu.
Don’t just keep talking. And the talkers never do, you will see. And doers never talk.
Those who do, they silently do. It’s a solid job. And the talkers, they will be talking and sitting during coffee, tea or drinking.
They will be talking, talking, talking and the world goes on. And they never do anything. So, useless talkers simply keep talking, like barking dogs.
They don’t gain anything. So, if you feel India needs to be protected, then you become a Kshatriya. Go and join army, navy or go and join air force.
I was planning to join Indian air force when I was chosen as a pilot officer. But I was not aware of spiritual life so much. So, I wanted to protect religion in India.
I was about to join. Later on, I felt when I got proper spiritual knowledge, I thought this is even more better. The Brahminical job is much more better.
So, when you understand this is better, dedicate your life for that. Why are you simply talking with your mouth? Like the Kshatriyas, when they fight also, they say, don’t talk short. Isn’t it? Don’t simply talk.
Show something. And that is the thing about useless talk. Useless talk is useless.
That’s why it is useless. See, when Prabhupada was saying, in Prabhupada’s time, many elderly Indians would come to meet Prabhupada and give Prabhupada very nice advice. Mamaji, you can do this, you can do that.
Prabhupada said, okay, what will you do? Tell me. You join the army. We don’t have women.
No, no, no. We will leave after becoming partial. And Prabhupada’s Indians are very expert in giving advice, suggestions.
So Prabhupada said, if you are giving suggestions, come and become a partner. Join in this mission. Useless.
And those who talk uselessly, they will speak as if they are going to change the whole nation. They will speak big big things, they won’t do anything. That is the Jesus of Christ Bible.
It says, one mustard seed of activity is better than one mountain of talk. Mountain of talk is useless. You have to do one mustard seed of activity.
Much of the talk about Hindutva that is there, surely that can, I mean, that may facilitate Vedic culture later on, but the Hindutva talk, most of these people, they are not really philosophically interested in knowing what the Bhagavad Gita is, what the Vedic literature is. That is at a material level, and much of it is basically meant to massage the Hindu false ego. And they are massaging the Hindu false ego.
And they don’t chant Ram’s name every day, they don’t chant Krishna’s name every day. So who is the true follower of Hindu? One who is chanting the Lord’s name. Is it not? Simply superficial religiosity will not do.
So there is a great need amongst you, if any of you are in RSS, or VHP, or NGC, you have some feelings for your nation, I have a wonderful action plan for you. I can share with you. You see, these people, they cannot accept unalloyed devotional service only to Krishna.
Because they accept all the Gods. Correct? All the Devatas. So, that is what they consider as Hinduism.
You know, this is also fine, that is also fine, everything is fine. Don’t say anything bad about anyone. Everything is fine.
Worship the Lord, worship Ganesha, worship Saraswati, do everything. Everything is fine. This is our philosophy.
So, if you give pure Krishna Consciousness, that will lead to rejection. So, we need to teach them that component of Krishna Consciousness, which is very basic, and which will be helpful for all Hindus, without bringing in Siddha Bhakti. For example, you can teach them about how you are not the body, you are the soul, how there is reincarnation, how this whole universe is governed by Devatas, there are many many Devatas controlling the agents of this world, how to establish God in this sense, and how, what are the, how to see everybody as a soul, and not injure others.
These kind of things we can teach them. If any of you have some feelings, you take up a project, go to RSS back, and teach those fellows, so that they will do their activities with more knowledge, more wisdom. And you can also teach them to chant either Shri Ram Jai Ram, Jai Jai Rama, Hare Krishna Maha Mantra, Jai Jai Ramakrishna, some chanting they should do, because the whole name is very important.
this kind of thing, and also they may celebrate festivals like Ram Navami, Ganesh Chaturthi, and everything. I had once written a letter on how we can assist, you know, to surround, to play those festivals. So, something we should do, instead of just uselessly talking, talking like old fellows, you know, who have no sense in their body to do anything, don’t just keep talking.
If you converse to the, Prabhupada had once gone to a Akhad, like a body building sort of place, and there are all these Pahelwans there, the Hindi Prabhupada people. So, you all are doing body building, it’s a good thing, it’s a good thing. And here I am seeing that Hanuman Ji is also there, so, yes, he is your ideal.
And when you are doing sitting, and moving your hands and legs, Hanuman Ji used to say Ram Ram, you also say Ram Ram. And that, regarding the, we were talking about the controversial issues, see, ISKCON is like a Kalpataru. Whatever we want from ISKCON, we will get it.
Now, if we want, if somebody comes here for money, they will get money. If somebody comes for women, they will get women. If somebody comes for power, they will get power.
If somebody comes for prestige, now where, in which organising people come and offer obeisances to you. If somebody wants controversy, they will get more controversy than what is available in material life also. But, if you want Krishna, you will get Krishna also.
So, actually, it’s up to us. All these controversial issues are there. But ultimately, what do we want? What have I come to Krishna Consciousness for? If we keep that in mind, then we will be steer clear of all these things.
And, steering, clearing of, clearing of, clear of all these things is not actually any sort of intellectual cowardice or anything like that. It’s just, what is our focus? See, basically, there are so many intellectual misconceptions there in society, within the movement also and outside also. So, protecting our faith is our responsibility.
And, it is not that somebody else can, somebody else has such arguments that are irrefutable. All arguments are refutable. But, arguments are often discussed at a particular level.
Just like if a war is going on, there is a, there is a elephant warrior from the opposite side and there is a foot soldier from this side. And, the foot soldier gets crushed. So, right now, we are like foot soldiers.
So, if somebody is talking, we hear somebody talking about some call of the jiva, siddha pranayama, if we want to learn about these things and if we have heard something, then we can go to our own elephant warrior, not try to fight that elephant warrior. We will get crushed. So, generally speaking, if anybody starts propagating any ideas, that person will have some sort of logic, some sort of reasoning and we, when we are discussing, we will not be able to find out what is the flaw in that.
Although, the other way is, if some disputing parties’ views are to be known, in the Madhya Sampradaya for example, they would recruit Mayawada. So, they have to know Mayawada to recruit Mayawada. But for the first 20 years of their training, they would never read any Mayawada books.
They would read only the reputations of Mayawada written by their own Acharyas. So, they would be equipped for reputation, but they would not be exposed directly. And then after 20 years of education, when they are deeply rooted, thoroughly convinced, they have understood the tactics of the false arguments, then they would study the opponent books.
And then they could refute that also. So, this is a time-honoured strategy, whether it is military or whether it is intellectual growth. So, it’s not that we are avoiding or dodging issues, but we are protecting our faith so that we can become equipped to deal with issues when the need arises and if the need arises first.
So, if we already have heard something which are misconceptions, then we can go to some mythology and discuss that and get the answers. But just circulating misconceptions or discussing with others who are equally ignorant, that only weakens our faith and then it drags us down. See, Maya attacks us in two ways.
One is doubts and the other is desires. Doubts attack us at the level of the intelligence, desire attacks at the level of the mind. So, and generally what happens when the doubts attack at the level of the intelligence, the intelligence becomes weak and then the mind takes over.
So, that’s how what Radhe Shyam was telling in general. First the doubts about the fall of the Juna came up and then next thing that happened, mind came up with lust. So, that’s how we get lost.
And so, we have to be very careful. And as Radhe Shyam was also telling about novels and things like that. So, there are many devotees who have also written novels.
Ramana Krishna Maharaj wrote a novel about how a Chinese person became a devotee. The story of Lee Kong Shi. Very beautiful Chinese person went to America and was taking education in America.
And there are other devotees who are also planning to write novels as well. Satsvarupa Maharaj has written a So, if we have had a… Bhaktivinoda Thakur has written several novels also. If we have a passion for that, if it is possible, we should find out whether it can be dovetailed in the book itself and then we can continue that.
And it’s possible for many things to be dovetailed in the book itself. Some things which can’t be dovetailed in the beginning. But there’s no need to keep things in an unguided, haphazard way because that will acquire an interest.
So, I want to give a concluding note to this. Use this as a topic. I have seen some devotees from Pune when they travel or when they meet each other.
I have loved devotees from a distance. So, they have a very good habit. Like one devotee is taking out the purpose book and is reading and other devotees are hearing and they are discussing for some time.
Whenever there is a free time when you are travelling or when you come across each other, if you really don’t know what is the right method of association with each other, the best is there is something to talk a book from. Like you say, take a leela murat and read little bit of leela murat and you just come. Then the time is very fruitfully spent rather than just gossiping uselessly about the rains in your city.
In our city there were no rains. How is the climate? What is the temperature in your place? How are the crops? So, devotees should not waste their time uselessly when they meet with each other. Our first identity is we are personal devotees and then all other identities come.
So, you should associate on that platform. Of course, you can also talk many things. You can talk about preaching.
You can talk about what did you all do in your voice, what did you all do in our voice. We did this. Sometimes people ask, hey you fellows, all the time you talk about preaching.
Somebody else asked this. You are talking about Sankalpa, you are talking about Spurti, you are talking about Utkarsh, you are talking about Upala, you are talking about frontline, you are talking about PM, AM, so many emotional acronyms. You know, you are talking.
Yes, talk about expanding the movement is also Krishna consciousness. Somebody said that. Preaching related talk is also Krishna consciousness.
You can talk about anything devotees are talking to you today. So, we can talk about preaching and expansion. You can talk from Krishna related book directly.
You can also ask another devotee. Prabhuji, you tell me, you face material desire very prominently in your mind attacking you. How do you tackle it? What are steps do you take? It’s a wonderful question.
If you ask the devotees, if you need to separate you, then you can get some nice answers. So, if you are asking enquiries to devotees, sharing and sharing with the devotee about some Maharaj you met, some sanyasis you met, some nice things that you heard from them, or some nice things that you read, sharing with others. These are things devotees should do when they need to preach to them.
And along with all these things, it’s also good for us to ask about health of the devotees. If you are a headache or you are alright now, you are asking about health, you are asking about the concerns of devotees, which they have been undergoing in the recent past. Yeah.
Take the mic. So, what’s the balance between direct Krishna talk and this talk is also Krishna, but in that lot of material things are also involved. So, sometimes we just talk about these things, but Krishna talk is not there much.
Yeah. But actually, the Krishna talk will increase depending on our absorption in the Shastra. Like you will see Prabhupada, when Prabhupada was cooking in the kitchen, on that side, both his Mataji’s were beside Prabhupada.
And then Nandarani Mataji was helping Prabhupada in making that round-round rasagulla, round one. Prabhupada would ask, take one one. If something becomes bigger, he would just strike it back.
It will go to the other side. Then he has to again remake it to the proper size and give it to Prabhupada. You know, Prabhupada wanted exactly the same size as he was doing it.
So Nandarani, do you know? Who is Nandarani do you know? He asked. Do you know Prabhupada? I don’t know. Nandarani is Yashoda.
Yashoda is Krishna’s mother. And Krishna is so much attracted by the love of mother Yashoda that he becomes conquered by her love that he takes a stick and kisses after Krishna. So Prabhupada spoke like this and Prabhupada laughed.
And Nandarani was so satisfied that okay, as long as Swami is happy with my service I am happy. He didn’t know much information and knowledge. But even such people Prabhupada spoke about Krishna.
You understand no? One day Prabhupada was sitting and eating lunch and devotees came and Prabhupada said look at this picture. You see mother Yashoda is catching the ear of Krishna throwing a stick and all Krishna’s friends are hiding behind the tree and peeping see them their heads are outside they are watching oh they are very afraid what is going to happen to our friend. Prabhupada was eating lunch but very naturally he is peeping.
How? Because it all depends on our absorption. What is our absorption? So our absorption may be in Krishna so much that we always be talking about Krishna or our absorption may be in preaching and expanding the movement and we may have mischievous spirits and we want to see is it arising with a passion or compassion. You may have a question but as long as our passion for preaching is not hurting the devotees it is helping the mission to expand one can talk about that.
Most devotees will be very happy and comfortable talking about preaching talking about toys, talking about programmes, talking about future plans and past successes and the failures from which we learn lessons they are very happy with that because that is in our level and as we keep doing it our Krishna absorption will increase more and more as the time goes higher and higher. So naturally when two very advanced devotees meet one devotee and say something in relation to they will see that eventually the Krishna absorption will increase. We will stop here but I will continue.
Similarly two things, it is a matter of proportion and purpose. Proportion, how much is the Krishna conscious talk, how much is the material talk and what is our purpose. For example, you may ask somebody about something material about his health so that we can bring that person closer to Krishna.
So if we keep these two things in mind the proportion doesn’t become too much and the purpose doesn’t become lost. Then even if we talk about the material life of a devotee that is only helping that person become closer to Krishna. So these two things, proportion and purpose we need to continue.
So, we are coming at 4 o’clock and 4 to 5.30 I will do that PowerPoint on devotee relationships that I will do. one and a half was good enough. Then we will start this meeting at 5.30 to 7 o’clock in the evening.
Hare Krishna, the prasadam served here is only for the camp participants. Also, all devotees are requested to keep all their