The home as the decentralized transmitter of devotional culture

[Congregation program at Edison, New Jersey, USA]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you. Hare Krishna.
Let us begin with a prayer to Lord Jagannath. So on the auspicious occasion of offering Chapant Bhoga to him. So Neelachala Nivasaya, that Lord who resides in Neelachala.
The mountain on which Lord Jagannath is said to reside is called as Neelachala. Achala is mountain, blue is immovable. So Neelachala Nivasaya.
And this person who is residing there is Nityaya Paramatmane. He is eternal. All of us are also eternal.
But we are Atmas. He is the Paramatma. He is the Supreme Soul.
And in the bhakti understanding, God is never alone. God is a person and God has relationships with everyone. So here, when Jagannath is there, Ballabhadra, Subhadra, Bhyam.
He is with his brother Ballabhadra and his sister Subhadra. Jagannathaya tenmaha. Under that Lord Jagannath, I offer my obeisances.
Now Jagannath is both in the bhakti tradition. Thank you. So in the bhakti tradition, God is said to have primary and secondary names.
So Jagannath is both a primary name and a secondary name. What does primary and secondary name mean? Say, a name that refers to a personal attribute of God. That is called a primary name.
Yashoda, Nandana, Govardhanbhai. These are names that are related to the personal attributes of Krishna. His relationships, his activities.
Now the secondary names are those which are related with his functions. So for example, if we have the Prime Minister of India. The Prime Minister is a functional name.
The chief executive of the country. But the Prime Minister has a proper name also. So like that there are primary names.
So God is itself a secondary name. Now God will be referred to as the Paramatma, as the Annadata, as the Vidhanakarta. All these are secondary names.
Now at one level, the name Jagannath can seem like a secondary name. He is the Lord of the Universe. Now the Vishwanath is a name which is used to refer to Lord Shiva.
Kashi Vishwanath is the temple well known in Kashi. The Jagann and Vishwa refer to something similar. The Universe.
But the word Jagannath, it can seem like a secondary name of God. But it’s also a primary name. In the sense that when Krishna manifests the form of Jagannath, at that time he is experiencing love in separation.
When Krishna left Vrindavan and was in Dwaraka, at that time he would constantly remember Vrindavan. And at one time, now between Vrindavan and Dwaraka, there were two characters who were there in the past times together. One was of course apart from Krishna who was in Vrindavan and came to Dwaraka.
Who were the other two characters? Balram and Rohini. So now Rohini, Balram and Krishna, when they came first to Uttara and then to Dwaraka, they were small children. Although they were heroic, they had overthrown the tyrant Kamsa, but still they were just 10 year old boys.
Rohini tried to act as a bridge between Krishna, Balram and the Dwaraka Vasis. Because the Mathura Vasis who later came to Dwaraka, they felt Krishna is our child. But Krishna loves Vraja Vasis so much.
Even when he is with us, he is thinking about them. In fact, Jiva Goswami in his book Gopal Champu describes that among the five Pandavas, why is it that Krishna loves Arjuna the most? So he says that there is a Gopa in Vrindavan named Arjuna. Because this name Arjuna reminded him of Vraja Vasi Vrindavan, Vraja Vasi Arjuna, so Krishna had a natural affection for Arjuna.
Now of course, we could have another perspective that all the Pandavas are great devotees, but Arjuna had the closest bond with Krishna. Arjuna had the deepest devotion. So there are different perspectives for explaining this.
But the point is the Vraja Vasis, they by their innocent and intense devotion and affection for Krishna, they won his heart. And even when he grew up and came to Dwaraka, although there was royal opulence here, his heart always longed for Vrindavan. So the Dwaraka Vasis couldn’t understand why is it Krishna is so constantly pining for Vrindavan.
And then they asked Rohini. And Rohini said, OK, I will tell you. And when Rohini started telling, she started telling about the love of Yashoda Mai for Krishna, of Nanda Maharaj for Krishna, of all the Vraja Vasis were constantly absorbed in Krishna.
And as they started hearing, the Dwaraka Vasis are also devotees of Krishna. But when they heard about the exalted devotion of the Vraja Vasis, they became completely absorbed. But before they started off this, Rohini told a caveat.
Caveat means a warning that if Krishna hears this, he’s already longing for Vrindavan. But now if you remind him of Vrindavan by speaking about it, it will not be good. He will immediately want to go to Vrindavan.
So we’ll speak when he has gone away. And they told Subhadra, be a guard at the door. So then as they were discussing, so Krishna, he felt something special is going on.
He was out in the palace doing other things, but he immediately came over there. And Subhadra was hearing Krishna’s pastimes and she got so captivated that she forgot. She not only forgot that she’s supposed to be a guard, she just forgot everything, just lost in Krishna’s pastimes.
Krishna and Balram also came there and they also became absorbed. Completely absorbed. Normally, our consciousness goes in different directions.
We have the five senses, five knowledge acquiring senses and the five working senses. So, through these, so right now say you are hearing this class, but at the same time you may also be feeling this room is too hot or too cold or you may be feeling you are sitting, it’s not so comfortable, it’s comfortable. So we get sensations from different senses which come in.
But when the Dwaraka Vasis are hearing about Krishna, I mean Krishna and Balram started hearing about Krishna, hearing about the Vrajivasis and their pastimes, they became so absorbed, so absorbed that actually sometimes if you don’t want distraction, then say if you are talking on phone with someone, you will be looking around at various things and talking on phone, but if it’s a very important phone call, you will turn around and maybe look at the wall, not look anywhere else. And focus entirely on that. So in the case of Krishna, when he was hearing the pastimes of Vrindavan, actually he just get completely absorbed and because of that absorption, everything that would be a potential source of distraction disappeared.
And thus, with the hands and legs we may do some things. Sometimes kids when they are sitting, just can’t sit, so they fiddle. And sometimes there are some toys for fiddling also.
Do some fiddling in a regulated way. So in this case, they didn’t want any distraction. So actually his hands not only became motionless, his hands disappeared into his body.
His feet also disappeared into his body. And his eyes became broad. He was observing and not just observing, he was actually visualising.
He was seeing not just what was in front of him, but he was also seeing that which was not near him. So in this form, Krishna transcended the limits of space and time. Although Krishna was in Dwarka, which is on the west coast of India, but he by his consciousness got transported to Vrindavan.
And that Lord who in his attraction to his devotees, in his appreciation for the love of his devotees, that Lord who transcends space and time, that Lord is Jagannath. So in this sense, Jagannath is the primary name of Krishna. It’s not just describing one who is the Lord of the universe.
It is the Lord who transcends the limits of space and time because of his love for his devotees. So that is Jagannath. And he is the Lord who is Krishna in separation from his devotees.
And Krishna is present as Jagannath. He is a very accessible form of the Lord, as Prabhupada would say that. If you don’t go to see the Lord in the temple, the Lord will come out through the chariot festival.
So when Jagannath, he comes out, he gives his darshan to everyone, even those who normally can’t have his darshan or even those who won’t have his darshan. Even if people don’t want, Jagannath comes riding majestically. Almost every major city in the world, we have Jagannath’s Athyatra going on.
From Boston to Belgrade to Brisbane, from Durban to even the Middle East, we have. In Dubai, we have Athyatra. Of course, we don’t have it public.
The devotees hire the biggest possible hall that is there. And indoors, they have Athyatra. So, from Durban to Dubai to Dubai, everywhere across the world, Jagannath’s mercy is being made available to people.
And Lord Jagannath, just as he is the Lord of the universe, he is the Lord of also our heart and also our home. And the mood of devotion, the bhakti tradition which is carrying this mood of devotion generation after generation, it has had a tremendous resilience. If you see, India has been among the countries that has been invaded the most in the world.
And yet, we see that traditional culture of India has gone on generation after generation after generation. And not just the culture, even economically till about 150-200 years ago, India was one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Although there were so many invaders who came.
Why is that? Because actually India’s economy and its religious culture, they were all decentralised. Decentralised means that economically India also had cities and it had villages. The cities were the visible centres of prosperity.
But the villages were the sources of prosperity. The villages were where farms would be there, where textile would be there, where minerals would be got from local places. So when invaders would come, they might plunder the cities.
But within a few years or a few decades at the most, because the villages were the sources of prosperity, the sources of prosperity would still go on and eventually the cities would again be rebuilt and they would be prosperous. And similarly, India had many wonderful temples. And unfortunately, many of these temples would sometimes be sacked.
But for thousands of years, the religious culture in India could not be sacked. Because the religious culture was centred not so much on the temple as on the home. The visible centre for religious activities was the temple, no doubt.
But the active transmitter of bhakti was the home. This is Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. In Bengal, did not ask any of his disciples to build any temples.
In Jagannath Puri, which was under the rule of a Hindu king, Pratap Rudra, they already had Jagannath temple. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did not ask the devotees to build any temple. But he encouraged Harinamamsa Kirtan.
Just the idea is that even if some invaders come, they try to disrupt. If there is a kirtan going on, there is nothing to disrupt. Devotees can just do kirtans, get up and go and do kirtan somewhere else.
So the idea is that the more centralised something is, the easier it is to destroy it. The centre falls, everything else falls. But the more decentralised something is, the more easier it is to regenerate it.
Even if something is damaged, it comes back again. Because there are so many places where it’s happening. So in organisational theory, they give the example of there is a spider and a starfish.
A spider, if it is cut in the centre, it dies. But a starfish, if it is cut, it replicates. So no matter how many times it is cut, it just replicates.
So the religious tradition in India was not like a spider. It was like a starfish. Even if it was one place, two places, three places were destroyed, still it just kept regenerating.
I was in Australia and there, there was a debate. It was a discussion come debate between a Christian, I was representing Hinduism, there was an atheist. And the topic was, why hasn’t God died till now? What that meant was, for almost 150 years now, sociologists, social thinkers, social critics, social historians have been predicting the death of God.
Friedrich Nietzsche was the infamous German philosopher who said God is dead. So their idea was that actually people who are unscientific, who believe in mythology, people who don’t have much rationality, they have imagined something called God. And they thought as science advances, as rationality increases, then religion will recede.
God will in that sense die. So their idea was that God will die or why hasn’t God died? That means God is simply an imaginary concept. But why are people continuing to imagine that God exists? Why are people continuing to believe in God? This belief should have become outdated and unscientific.
But far from God or religion dying, across the world there is a rejuvenation religion. America is materialistic but America according to sociologists is one of the most religious countries in the western world. Russia also, religion was suppressed for very long but it has resurfaced.
And in a big way religion is growing. In the world primarily it is Europe that is largely atheistic now. And so one of the findings that emerged, I also spoke over there, that actually what causes religion to wane is not so much scientific rationality.
There is a well-known scientist who said that actually, all my colleagues, 50% believe in God, 50% don’t believe in God. So science itself does not talk about anything non-material. Science simply looks for material explanations of material phenomena.
Some scientists may believe in God, some scientists may disbelieve in God. That is based on their personal ideology. So the idea that as science advances, belief in God will recede, that is simply a myth.
Science and God are not competitors. Science actually explains how nature works. But God explains why nature works the way it works.
That means that science may find an equation, say F is equal to gm1m2 upon r square, E is equal to mc square, gravity, relativity. But why are these equations there at all? Why should nature follow any laws at all? So God is the explanation for the explainability of science. What science is able to explain, why is it able to explain like that? That is God.
I won’t go into that debate right now. But my point here is primarily that actually when religion recedes, when faith in God recedes, that’s not so much because of scientific rationality. It is primarily because of social disruption at the familial level.
In Europe if you see, families have fallen apart. In America also it is happening. But there are a lot of people who still adhere to traditional values.
So it is when the family structure is strong, that from one generation to another, religious and spiritual values are passed on. But when the family structure weakens, then all of life becomes focused somehow on dealing with one’s own loneliness, dealing with life’s daily necessities. The functional aspect of life takes up so much energy and attention that there is nothing left for anything higher.
If you look at India also, India’s family structure is strong. If India is going towards materialism and somewhat towards scepticism and atheism, that is primarily because there is the disconnect between the religious values of the country and the contemporary way of thinking of the people. One of Shri Prabhupada’s disciples whom I met recently, he said he had gone for a search for God to India.
And he said India, I met two kinds of, before he met Prabhupada, he said I met two kinds of religious people. He said there were some who seemed to be spiritually very realised and advanced. They were seers but they did not know English and they lived somewhere high up in the Himalayas.
So they were inaccessible. What they spoke nobody understood. And there are others who were more not seers but priests.
He said they were more interested in doing rituals and getting money for the rituals than in transmitting any spiritual knowledge. So those who had spirituality seemed inaccessible and those who were representing the spiritual culture, they seemed too materialistic. So because of this, the young Indians of today, they just don’t get an understanding of what Indian culture is, of what spiritual wisdom is.
It is primarily because the values are not being communicated in an intelligible way. A defining difference in the last 30-40 years itself, the world has changed more than what it has changed in the last 300 years. Especially with the advent of the internet, things have just changed drastically.
So what has happened is, in the past, there was a culture of deference. If somebody older tells us to do something, we’ll do it. We see in the Ramayana, KK tells something very wrong to do.
But Ram is respectful and does it. And this is actually across cultures. If you look at Greek stories, Native American stories, Australian stories, even the elders tell you to do something wrong, we do it.
And then gradually they also understand and things become right. So the idea of respecting some authority was almost universal. But in today’s world, that is not there.
The idea is, I will do what I want to do. And one reason why, it’s a complicated issue, but one reason why marriages don’t last in today’s world is, that in the past, marriage was seen as an obligation. It is a duty.
If we get happiness through it, if it is a compatible partner, that’s wonderful. But if it isn’t, it’s a duty to be done. And if the elders tell, OK, you get married here, you get married, and then persevere to whatever happens.
But today, marriage is seen not as an obligation, but as a choice. It’s a choice done for pleasure. And if it doesn’t work, then why continue? So this ethos has changed.
And that’s why we need to present the tradition within this ethos. If we don’t do that, then it gets lost. In fact, going back to the earlier point of decentralisation and centralisation, the internet itself is a good example of a decentralised unit.
There’s a story that when the internet came up new, they wanted to do business on the internet. So some Chinese businessmen were supposed to invest in some American business venture. And he said, we’ll do this business across the internet.
This American businessman who had gone to these Chinese people, he said, he said that we will do the business. He said, what is this internet? This was the early 2000s. He said, oh, internet, they have to explain the network.
He said, okay, this internet, who is the president of the internet? We want to meet him. So then, they tried to explain. The internet is completely decentralised.
So then, they just couldn’t digest it. So this American businessman said, I am the president of the internet. And then they agreed to do the business.
So he said that for six months, I was the president of the internet. Till they understood what the internet actually is. So the idea is that actually, bhakti is practised and transmitted, has always been done in a decentralised way.
That means there are temples, there are priests, there are spiritual leaders, but they give inspiration. It is in every heart that bhakti is internalised. And from one heart, it is transmitted to another heart.
And as this passes on, this is how generation after generation it goes on. And in every generation, they will intelligently find out how best to enable people to connect with Krishna. But the festivals like what we are having now, Chappan Bhok to Jagannath, this is where devotion is not just seen as something which is done in the temple.
Devotion is what we want to bring to our heart. And the way we bring it to our heart is by bringing it close to what is close to our heart. That idea is our home is very close to us.
It’s close to our heart. So when we practise bhakti at home, when we have the Lord as the centre of our house, that Jagannath, who is the Lord of the universe, we want him to become the Lord of our heart. We want him to become our Prananath, our Hrudayanath.
In between him being the Lord of the universe and he being the Lord of our heart, in between, a vital stage is that he becomes the Lord of our home. He becomes our Grahanath. He becomes the Lord of our home.
So when we have the deities at our home, when we worship the deities, that is the way we are offering that which is closest to our heart to the Lord of our heart. The one who want to be the Lord of our heart. There was this Bollywood movie PK, which talked about, which is a satire on religion.
So after that movie came out, I wrote a small book responding to the questions in that book. So I called my book as GK for PK. So GK is General Knowledge, God Knowledge and Gita Knowledge.
Based on all those three, I answered the questions. So one of the questions there was that, when you go to the temple, why do we need to give donations? Why does God need money? Now the point is that what God wants is our heart. But our heart is caught in so many things.
In this and that and so many things. So if we can’t give our heart to the Lord, we give what is in our heart to the Lord. And money has a central place in our heart.
So when we give some donation to the Lord, what happens is, by giving that which is in our heart to the Lord, then we give the Lord a place in our heart. It’s a simple logic. Prabhupada would generally say that, don’t give books freely to anyone.
He said, if people pay for taking a book, it is not that we can’t distribute books free. But if we give books, if somebody pays for a book, then they value a little bit. So Prabhupada would imitate people and he says, hey, I gave five dollars.
Let me see what these rascals are saying. So Prabhupada said that people will read it. So actually, ultimately we are meant to give our heart to Krishna.
But when we give what is in our heart to Krishna, by that we give Krishna a place in our heart. Similarly, our home has a central place in our heart. And when we give a central place in our home to Krishna, by that he gets a central place in our heart.
And the more devotion is seen as something integral to our life, not something which is intermittent to our life. When we see devotion, something like I go to a temple and I practise bhakti over there. That is good.
But that is something which is intermittent. I was in Detroit, so my brother also stays there. So one of his brother’s friend had come to the temple.
So I asked him, have you come to the temple? He said, regularly. I said, how regularly? He said, every janmashtami. So it’s good, once a year at least you come to the temple.
In India, we have a temple in Juhu, which is right close to where many of the Bollywood celebrities stay. So many of these Bollywood celebrities, they come to the Juhu temple for janmashtami. Now, India is still a very pious culture.
So, often when the celebrities come to janmashtami, now, some of them may be devoted, but some of them may not be. So they come to the temple, and then when they come to the temple, they take photos of themselves coming to the temple and put them on Facebook, Instagram. And they get so many views for that.
So, actually we don’t know their heart, but who knows whether they are coming to the temple to take darshan or to give darshan. So, when devotion is something which is intermittent in our life, then it doesn’t become very internalised. As long as devotion is something which we do when we go to the temple, then it’s just intermittent.
But when devotion is something which we do at our home, we have deities at our home, we worship them at our home, then devotion becomes integral to our life. And to the extent it becomes integral to our life, to that extent Krishna comes more and more to the centre of our heart. Now, the home and the temple, so we can say that the temple, the home and the heart, all three are linear, and all three are also parallel.
That means that first we may, because we live in mostly materialistic culture, we may not know much about God or Krishna, or we may not feel it much relevant to our life. So, first we go to the temple, and that’s where we come to know. Maybe we attend some classes, we meet devotees, we feel good about it, it makes sense to us.
So, then from the temple we feel, Oh, I want to do this more. Then devotees invite us, encourage us, and then we give deities to our home. So, it’s linear.
From the temple, the Lord comes into our home, and then as we start practising bhakti steadily, then Krishna starts entering more and more into our heart. So, in that sense, devotion is linear from temple to home to the heart. But at the same time, it is also parallel.
That means that when we are practising bhakti, at that time we do go to the temple, that’s an important part of our life. We have the deities in our home, that’s also an important part of our life. And we practise bhakti so that the Lord is an enduring presence within us.
And in the 11th canto of the Bhagavatam, it is said that the exalted devotees of Krishna, they are just like wealthy people. It’s a very interesting comparison. They are like extremely wealthy people.
So, what is the comparison there? It says that just as wealthy people, whichever part of the world they go, they can just use their money and enjoy. They can enjoy and have pleasure with their wealth wherever they go. Similarly, for those who are very devoted to Krishna, wherever they go, they can speak about Krishna, they can sing about Krishna, they can remember Krishna, and they can delight in Krishna.
So, the Bhagavatam uses the metaphor here. It says wealth is commonly thought of as a source of happiness. Now, it is not always a source of happiness.
It is, if somebody is below the poverty line, till they come above the poverty line, there is a linear correlation between wealth and happiness. Absence of wealth causes trouble. Presence of wealth gives happiness.
But once people’s basic needs are taken care of, there is no correlation whether wealth will make people happy or it will make them unhappy. But it’s commonly thought that the more money we have, the more happy we will be. The Bhagavatam uses that metaphor and says that if we have devotion, then wherever we are, we can be happy.
Wherever we are, we can remember Krishna, we can chant about Krishna, we can read about Krishna, and we can be enriched by our devotion. So, for us, when we are practising bhakti, when we are not just practising it for ourselves, just as if we have a family and we are earning money, we want to take care of our children so that they will have good education and they will have a legacy to carry on. We like to give them some property to inherit, pass it on from us.
So, just as we pass on physical wealth, we are also meant to pass on spiritual wealth. That is the greatest treasure that we can give to anyone. If the treasure of devotion is passed on to our loved ones, then that devotion can give them shelter no matter what big problems come in their life.
That devotion can give them strength and satisfaction no matter what ups and downs come in their life. Just as it takes time to appreciate, like if a small child is there, give them a $500 note also. Child is there, they don’t even know what a $500 note is.
Just as children, if you tell them to study, they say, what is the use of studying? They don’t understand. But the parents understand. And that, a part of growing up is appreciating the value of things more and more.
So, similarly, the process of bhakti is actually a process of great inner enrichment. And when we are ourselves enriched by devotion, then even when life’s ups and downs come upon us, we can face them without getting too agitated by it. Bhagavatam says, the third canto, that the distresses of life will come, but they will not hurt those who are absorbed in Krishna because their consciousness is in Krishna.
Say, it’s very hot outside, but if you come into a room which is air-conditioned, immediately we experience relief. So, like that, our consciousness, our thoughts wander over hundreds of things in our day-to-day life. And most of the things we think about, they agitate us, they disturb us, they create cravings within us.
But when our consciousness is fixed on Krishna, we experience peace, we experience joy. So, focussing the consciousness on Krishna is like bringing, like coming to an air-conditioned room within the storm, within the external heat. So, similarly for us, when we focus on Krishna, we become absorbed in Krishna, then we get relief, even amidst distress.
The distresses will come, but they won’t trouble us that much. Because Krishna, our connection with Krishna will shelter us internally. We may get different problems in our life by whatever may have happened in the past, whatever karma we may have done, but Krishna, if He is with us, He will help us to weather all storms.
And if we pass on that culture of Krishna Bhakti to others, that will equip them also to pass on all storms, to pass through all storms. Whatever karma may get us to, whatever karma may get us to, Krishna will get us through. Whatever karma may get us to, Krishna will get us through.
And that’s why Krishna is the supreme treasure. We all can treasure it, and we can pass on that treasure. And the place where traditionally this treasure has been passed on generation after generation is the home.
It’s the temple, it’s the heart, and it’s the home. And when the home is made into a temple, or the home is celebrated as a temple through festivals like these, then this culture of devotion becomes internalised as well as shared with others. So it’s wonderful to be here for offering Chappan Bhav to Jagannath.
And let us conclude once again, and summarise, and then we’ll repeat the prayer to Jagannath, and we’ll conclude. So I spoke on the theme of how the home is the perennial transmitter and regenerator of devotion. I started by talking about how Jagannath is not just a secondary name referring to he being the lord of the universe, but also a primary name.
Because Krishna in Dwarka became absorbed in Vrindavan. So that lord transcended the limits of space and time by his absorption in his devotees. So that lord who in this way transcends the limits of the universe, he is Jagannath.
And I talked about how the bhakti tradition has endured in India generation after generation despite so many invaders coming in because it has been decentralised. It’s as economically, the cities where the visible visible objects, visible locations of prosperity but the villages where the invisible sources of the prosperity. So the cities were plundered, still thing will be regenerated.
Similarly, there are times in Indian history where temples were sacked and the temples could not be built. But still the religious culture went on because it was there in the homes. So the idea that it’s not that scientific progress leads to religious regress.
It is rather, it is social and family breakdown that leads to religious regress. Science and God are fully compatible. Science explains how nature works and God explains why nature works the way it works.
So God is the explanation for the explainability of science. And to the extent we talked about when we are practising bhakti, there is a progress from the temple to the home, to the heart. That’s linear.
But as long as bhakti is seen as something only has to be done in the temple, then it remains one part of our devotion. It’s intermittent. But when it comes to our home, then it comes closer to our heart.
We want to give our heart to Krishna but because our heart is filled with so many things, we give what is in our heart to Krishna. Whether that is Lakshmi or whether that is our graha, our home. And while bhakti progresses linearly from the temple to the home to the heart, it also progresses in parallel.
We practise bhakti in the temple, we practise it in our home and we cherish remembrance of Krishna in our heart. So a wealthy person can enjoy life wherever they are with their wealth. Similarly, a devoted person can glorify Krishna anywhere and rejoice in their devotion.
So when we want to pass on a legacy to our loved ones so that they have something valuable from us, that physical wealth can be passed on but the inner wealth of devotion can protect them from life’s inevitable dangers. Remembrance of Krishna is like bringing our consciousness to air-conditioned room. The heavy heat, it will go on externally but we will not be troubled.
So that culture of Krishna bhakti will protect us through our life journey and protect our loved ones through their life journey. Whatever karma may get us through, Krishna will get us through. So let’s repeat once more the prayer.
Shri Jagannath Swami ki Jai! Shri Jagannath Baldev Subhadramaya ki Jai! Shri Prabhupada ki Jai! Gaur Bhakta Vrinda ki Jai! Gaur Premananda ki Jai! Somebody has a question? Krishna, anybody has a question? Especially I see some new faces. It’s a great opportunity. Do you want to ask any questions? Thank you.