Let’s read the verses from the “Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu”: 

adau sraddha tatah sadhu
sango 'tha bhajana-kriya
tato 'nartha-nivrittih syat
tato nistha rucis tatah
athasaktis tato bhavas
tatah premabhyudancati
sadhakanam ayam premnah
pradurbhave bhavet kramah

Today I’m starting, finally, the main topic of our seminar, “Anartha-nivritti”, getting rid of all that’s unwanted. But I still want to go back to what we said before, so that we can once again have the opportunity to reflect on everything that was said. 

The first two days we discussed that there are two categories of faith: natural faith, faith that originates from the soul itself as a response to the sound of the scriptures, and faith imposed upon us from without. And a very important practical conclusion from all this reasoning is that when we preach to others, we should be very careful so that the faith that we give to people or trying to give them, is not imposed. Because if this faith is purely external, imposed upon them, arising not from their internal need, then this faith, sooner or later, even having encouraged them to take up the path of bhakti, will produce some unwanted consequences. So we should leave people their freedom. Freedom is the only necessary prerequisite for obtaining true spiritual experience. Without freedom all our attempts to to obtain spiritual experience on the path of spiritual practice will fail.

If we look, we’ll see how Krishna carefully avoids Arjuna’s attempts to impose something upon Him because from the very beginning Arjuna asked Him, “Krishna, tell me exactly. I’ll do anything, I’ll salute and will do whatever You tell me, niscitam bruhi tan me – tell me in clear terms, there’s no need for all these definitions, I am a military man, we‘re not philosophers here, tell me and I'll do it”. And Krishna began, “Both this is good and that's good. One can either act or be inactive, but it’s better to act, although you can also be inactive. And if you take up bhakti it’s easier, but you can also not take up the path of bhakti, you can meditate on the Impersonal Absolute – that’s also Okay, that’s another possibility”. Arjuna tells Him, “Tell me clearly; tell me what to do and I'll do it!” Krishna says, “Think yourself”. Krishna insists on this fact that a person must think himself, must decide himself, and at the end Krishna says, “I told you everything, you now think it over and do as you wish”. True, at the very end Krishna says, “Well Okay, so be it, since I trust you, I'll tell you what you must do, man-manā bhava mad-bhakto mad-yājī māṁ namaskuru mām evaiṣyasi satyaṁ te pratijāne priyo 'si me ... sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja...”Nevertheless, at the very beginning of the spiritual path a person should have a clear understanding that he is making this step on his own, that this faith is his faith, not something imposed upon him from without. And in regards with this, I was saying that it’s very important that a person understands the logic – the logic of the scripture, the logic behind bhakti. Because, if we start from some other end and try to unravel bhakti from some other end, it’s very likely that we won’t come to the right conclusions. One must start at the beginning.

I’d like just in a few words, although again, this is not the topic of our discussion, but I wanted to share with you how Bhaktivinoda Thakur sums up this logic of the scriptures in order to give us a firm foothold inside: why should we practice bhakti? He gives six points or six arguments in favor of the fact that the highest purpose of the living being or the highest nature of the living being is devotional service to the Personality of Godhead. And these are, actually, very simple arguments at first glance, but it’s good to know them. I’m not going to go in great details. He says, the first argument or the first consideration, the first step in our efforts to logically understand why we should practice bhakti is that what do we see around us? We see around us something highly ordered, something extremely beautiful, don’t we? Look around – all that is created by God is beautiful by definition. Each instant – as Radhanath Maharaj was recently saying in a lecture how he was sitting on a boulder in the middle of the Ganges watching how every moment a picture of a genius was being created. Then it would disappear and a new one, no less brilliant would appear, and a new one ... And Bhaktivinoda Thakur says that we see intelligent design, beauty and order everywhere. And a more or less thinking person can see that this cannot appear by chance, that any accidental event, just an accidental event… Or, if you look at the orderliness of everything in nature, at the subtle structure, at the subtle mechanisms behind it all, any accidental event doesn’t result in beauty, if just some explosion happens. Like, some people say that all of us are the result of the Big Bang, fragments. Something hideous by its very nature had happened without any rational principle behind it all, and everything that we see appeared as a result of it. And we sit and think, “Wow, what a nice explosion that was!” (laughter)

Further on he says that the next argument or the next conception is that the universe is active. We can see that everything here is active, everything is in motion, right? But behind any activity, he says, there’s always intelligence. There is always a purpose, there is always something conscious behind this because activity, once again, … Otherwise, ultimately we have only one choice: we either live in a meaningless, chaotic, irrational universe and, accordingly, we are meaningless, too, our life is meaningless, everything is meaningless; or, we live in a creation where everything is meaningful, where everything has its place and order. And the choice is yours: if you want you can live in the first world – nothing good will come out of it. He says that behind any activity there’s a doer. Behind the functioning universe there’s someone who does it. 

And then he gives a very important, very simple argument. Because some people say that mind originates from matter, right? Does mind originate from matter? He gives a very simple argument, discouragingly simple: if mind could originate from matter this would’ve been happening all the time before our eyes. Why should this have happened only once? This has happened once by accident and as a result here we are ... If this is something normal, then it must be happening to us again and again. 

Further on he gives an interesting argument. He says, look, whatever people we take, no matter where they live, be it on an island in the Arctic Ocean or at the South Pole, or wherever else, at the equator or somewhere else – they all have faith in God. And he says, mistakes are never the same, the same can be only the Truth. All human beings have naturally come to one and the same, all people have in one way or another, this idea of God. And he says, actually, if we take some people who have no idea of God whatsoever … Usually people have at least some idea of God – even the Chinese, the Chinese have no word for “god”, but still they have the Dao, they have the Law, they still have the idea about the intelligence behind all this. He says, mistakes are never the same. The same can be only the Truth or the attempt to discover that same truth. And he says that if people reject God, on the contrary, rejection of God is the result of conscious efforts. Like, people have been trying to deliberately impose atheism in the Soviet Union for 70 or 80 years but no matter how hard they’ve been trying, that didn’t work out. Because it’s something unnatural, something that a person resists to. It is precisely the other way around, faith in God is natural. Who used to pray to God, when still being a child not knowing anything about God, please raise your hands? It comes out by itself from somewhere within. 

And two more arguments that he gives are directly related to us in the sense that these are arguments of the series of what our life will be like if we reject God. He says that if a person doesn’t believe in God, his goals will be very insignificant and the person won’t be able to live a truly human life, his life is immediately degraded and the person becomes shallow. Have you noticed this? As soon as a person rejects God his goals or his world immediately becomes very narrow around him. And he says that as a result of this a person is left with nothing but one thing: fear of death. If he rejected God the only thing that still forces him to live on is fear of death and the fear of death will be making the person more and more insignificant – his goals, his objectives, everything around him will become very small and insignificant.

The final argument that he gives is that if a person doesn’t have this natural faith in God based on logic and natural gratitude, then he’ll have no desire to fulfill the will of God; therefore, he won’t be able to live a truly moral life. Thus a person will never achieve perfection and will remain sinful, and, therefore, unhappy. This is another curious argument, he says that if I don’t have faith in God, I’ll have no incentive to fulfill the Supreme will and, therefore, I’ll live by some low standards, and if I live by low standards, I’ll never be able to achieve perfection. This argument is very important and essential for our understanding that without faith in God I’ll never be able to achieve perfection, and consequently, my life will be dirty and sinful; and, since it will be sinful, I’ll be unhappy. These are the six arguments given by Bhaktivinoda Thakur. I just wanted to share them with you. 

But we need to hurry up, therefore I want to move on to our goal. Yesterday we said that as long as there is no complete confidence that bhakti is our goal ... Faith has appeared in us, faith that bhakti is a path; and bhakti is a path by which we’ll be able to attain the ultimate goal. Who has this kind of faith? We have faith in the path and faith in the goal, the faith that love is the highest goal that a person must attain, complete unselfishness, complete, absolute self-sacrifice, which can make a person truly happy. But since this faith at the beginning is not very strong, it is still hesitant, a person hesitates, then, accordingly, what else will be happening to us? Besides this goal what else will there be? Other goals. We’ll be distracted by some other things, other goals will be appearing. And, actually what we were discussing yesterday was the cause of one’s instability in bhakti ... The reason for this instability is only one – that I don’t have absolute faith in the fact that this is what I want in life and that time and time again I suddenly remember and think: maybe I need something else? Maybe I’ve missed something? Maybe I’ll miss something, if I don’t do something else as well? Therefore the last stage that we discussed yesterday is the ultimate test of our stability – it’s the test by what? By fame, by money, by honor ... This is a very hazardous stage because a person is still not completely and absolutely confident that the only thing he needs is love, the only thing he needs is bhatki. Therefore, when other things appear he thinks, ”Jaya! Haribol! The scriptures have not deceived me! You can achieve everything by following the path of bhakti!”

And the meaning of faith or the purpose of our studying the scriptures or listening to the scriptures, that helps us to overcome all obstacles, is to again and again inwardly very clearly understand the goal: this is my goal! Everything else is not so significant. And then, when I have this clear vision of the goal, I’ll be ultimately able to attain this goal. Because if I don’t see the goal clearly, will I be able to attain it? No, I won’t. The goal is blurred before my eyes and ultimately I’ll be going somewhere else, who knows where.

And everything we said yesterday, especially at the end, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu compares to weeds, weeds that grow among bhakti, because when a person is engaged in bhakti, there are other desires appearing and weeds grow by themselves, weeds don’t need watering, weeds themselves can stifle this tree of bhakti. The Bengali or Sanskrit word that is used in "Chaitanya-caritamrita" when describing these weeds is upasakha. Sakha means a branch, like in Visakha, and upasakha means small branches or some auxiliary twigs. And another meaning or another translation of the word upasakha is something that grows on the tree of bhakti, the parasites. Here in this part of the world we don’t have many parasitic plants, although there are some like cuscuta. These are plants that have no roots and feed on the main plant. In India, especially in South India, we can see a tree growing and all of a sudden some other tree growing from it which has no root system of its own. And what do these upasakhas or these parasites do to the tree of bhakti? Yes, they deplete its strength and suck out its sap and they prevent the sprout of bhakti from bearing fruit. Since the sprout is growing but its strength is being sucked out ultimately it cannot bear fruit, it cannot bear the fruit which it’s supposed bear, love of God. It turns weak, all the necessary vitality is sucked out of it and we can see various different phenomena of this kind when people go astray from the path of bhakti, or mistake something else in themselves for bhakti, some extraneous desires and think that “I have to gain followers, I have to do something else... this is a very dangerous thing. Therefore Visvanatha Chakravarti Thakur says that one of the anarthas are those generated by the very practice of bhakti, something undesirable.

Well, now we’re going to actually describe the stage of anartha-nivritti. Of course, I’ll be able to just touch on the important points but I’d like to say a few words about what anartha-nivritti means. 

Yesterday I said that when a person begins to practice bhajana-kriya, at the beginning he feels what? Enthusiasm, a surge of energy, he has no problems. At the beginning no one has any problems, right? It’s just our relatives that have problems (laughter), we have no problems, we want to get everyone back to the right path, but we personally have no problems. But then the problems start and the problems are supposed to start and I’d like to now mainly explain the mechanism of appearance of these problems, why problems must inevitably start. Bhajana-kriya is a process of purification, we begin to purify our hearts and very often in the process of purification it seems that we are getting purified but after a while we see there some things that weren’t there before. Has anyone noticed this happening to him? Because a person was used to thinking that “Generally, I’m good” but then he started getting purified and all of a sudden, after five years of purification, he sees that he’s turned into a complete monster. Where does it all come from? Was this monster there before or not? It was; just in the course of our life we accumulate this dirt and we don’t see this dirt; we get used to it, it’s there. And if we suddenly have to do spring cleaning ... Has anyone ever done spring cleaning? There is so much dirt! There’s no end to it! When you start cleaning, when you start sweeping the dust, dust appears out of nowhere though it would seem it wasn’t there before! Therefore, all these painful, unpleasant phenomena of the bhajana-kriya period are actually a healthy process. Gradually Krishna reveals to us, one by one, the monsters that live within us and whose existence we weren’t even suspecting before. And along with this – of course, this is a very painful process, because at the beginning, when we started our devotional service, we were enthusiastic, joyful, ecstatic, and we thought that “I already know everything, that actually I know everything and that I'm very advanced. Right? When anartha-nivritti comes, a person realizes that he knows nothing and that he’s not advanced at all and that actually he hardly has any merit. 

Moreover, the most painful fact is that he’s faced with these snakes that live at the bottom of our consciousness. There is a very important principle to remember, especially when studying “Srimad-Bhagavatam”: atha brahmin ye tatha pinda – that the brahmanda or the macrocosm is structured in the same pattern and by the same plan as the microcosm. And when “Srimad-Bhagavatam” describes the structure of the universe with its 14 planetary systems, it’s also a description of the structure of our consciousness. In the Puranas it’s explained that the seven higher planetary systems correspond to what in our body? To the seven cakras. The seven higher planetary systems are the seven cakras that control our mind, because these are seven centers all along the body that actually direct the conscious activities of a man and the entire consciousness is controlled by these centers and there are lower centers among those higher planetary systems that control our bestial activity; there’s an intermediate level and there are higher levels. And there are seven lower planetary systems Patala, Sutala, Talala, Atala, Rasatala ... All of these talas and the seven lower planetary systems are the seven levels of the subconsciousness. And it’s said that sunlight doesn’t reach down to the seven lower planetary systems and that there’s no ight. This means that the light of consciousness doesn’t penetrate there, into those layers of the subconsciousness. And who lives there? Who lights it all up? Snakes, snakes live there. What are those snakes doing there? They’re hissing and on their heads they have these stones that light up everything. In other words, there are many snakes in our subconscious mind. The light of our consciousness doesn’t reached there, but the snakes of lust, absolutely horrible, live there, there's a lot of things there, a lot of nice things live in our subconscious mind. Some people are enjoying there, on those planets inhabited by those snakes. They are called bilasvargas – planets where a person can enjoy all this and a person does sometimes enjoy all these snaky qualities of his. Occasionally we see or hear the evil hiss of these serpents: hissss. Has anyone heard how this malice comes up from his subconsciousness? Generally, we are all good, right? But sometimes ... wow! Malice, envy, some hidden unrealized desires, driven down inside – all this sometimes comes up. And when we purify our heart, these things, these snakes sometimes creep up onto the surface. In this sense, problems are inevitable in the course of our purification. Problems cannot be absolutely avoided, and if I have no problems, what does that mean? Yes, it can only mean two things: either you are a nitya-siddha who’s descended from the spiritual world and in this case you have no problems – this happens in about 50% of the cases (laughter), or it means that you don’t practice bhajana-kriya. Bhajana-kriya is a process of purification and the process of purification means that we’ll be faced with the problems we have. 

And here comes the big problem, because when we come face to face with these problems it becomes very painful, right? Because we’re used to thinking that we have no problems. Before we started the process of devotional service we thought that all the others have great problems and I have one or two small ones. Right? This is approximately our standard starting point. Generally, I'm a good fellow, I have no particular problems. It so happened that those around me have great problems, but I have no great problems. There are some small ones. But generally I’m a nice guy or a nice girl or a nice someone else. And all this is also a natural result of my being engaged in self-suggestion for a long time. What is our mind saying to us? There are auto-suggestion formulas like: your arm is warm, your arm is warm ... If you repeat that for a long time your arm will become warm. In the same way we too have standard formulas of auto-suggestion. What are they? You’re the best. Even before we became pure devotees, we were the best. It’s later that we became pure devotees. Before we became pure devotees, we were already the best and, actually, that’s the only reason we became pure devotees, it’s was the natural result of all this (laughs). 

And we have these two formulas by which we live. Yesterday I spoke a little about it, that I am the best and everyone else is at least worse. And people love to talk about this. Actually, people have only two topics of conversation, it's about what a nice guy I am and what bad guys everyone else are, right? This is the topmost topic of all our conversations. When people get together they start talking about this – either the one or the other. I already explained yesterday that, in essence, all this is of a spiritual nature, this quality, because the soul feels its impeccability in the same way as it feels its eternity, its latent hidden nature, which is now crushed beneath the load of anarthas and it persistently cannot understand why this nature doesn’t reveal itself and it’s trying to solve this problem by self-hypnosis, by means of some self-suggestion. And it suggests this to itself and why do people so often talk about being good? Because they want to suggest that to the others, too. Right? Because myself being convinced of being the best is not enough, all the others also need to be. Fortunately for people Krishna’s thought of family life. In family life we won’t be allowed to retain these illusions. But a very important point that we need to understand is how bhajana-kriya brings out the anarthas. What is bhajana-kriya or how these anarthas or snakes come up, what the actual mechanism of this is and why it is exactly the devotional service that starts cleansing the heart so speedily? Ordinary activities or ordinary life doesn’t lead to such a massive cleansing. To deal with these obstructions or problems in a nice way we must clearly understand the mechanism behind it all. What is bhajana-kriya? Service, correct. Actually, bhajana-kriya is the act of service. When I serve the guru, the Vaishnavas and Krishna, of course. I'm trying to serve. And what is service by definition? Who can give a definition of service, we are all engaged in service. What is service? (Repeats the answers of the audience) Selfless and uninterrupted ... I can go back and forth in a very unselfish manner and continuously do this without any self-interest – will that be service? That's right, finally: service is when I act or do something for the satisfaction of Krishna, the Vaisnavas and the guru. When by my actions, attitude and words I want to please the guru, the Vaishnavas and Krishna. And it is precisely at this point that real service begins. And here the real problem starts because people are not used to serve, we don’t understand what it means to serve. We know very well how to act for our own sake, for the sake of our own pleasure. But what does it mean to act for the pleasure of someone else? This means that I must somehow adjust my mentality, I must try to change my mentality so that what I'm doing is pleasing not to myself but to him. And it’s exactly because of this, it is exactly where the problems start.

I am faced with this very often. Someone comes and says, “Give me a service”. I say, “Well, you can do this”. “No, I’m not going to do this”. “Well, maybe this?” “No, never, no way!” I think, well, maybe something else, “Then may be this?” “This is impossible, I cannot do this!” I say, “Well, then I don’t know what to give you”. And here a scandal begins: “I’m not given a service! I wasn’t given service, I was offended!” Because people have the idea that service is what? Yes, something that I'll be proud of. Service is my way to be proud in the devotees society, therefore they say, “Give me a service!” And then take offense if the service is not what they want it to be. Or another thing I often hear is, “I’ve been deprived of my service!” And usually it’s those who’ve been denied the service of a temple president or a regional secretary who say that. No one has ever said that “I was deprived of the service of washing pots”. It’s such a strange paradox but no one ever has complained about that. People think that service ... They transfer their own ideas ... In essence, it’s the same activities we were engaged in in the material world, for which we received awards or things like that. And in the material world my activities is something I like, something that brings me something, that allows me to be proud of. And we think, “I’ve joined the devotees society – give me a service”. Now the same thing is just called in another way: service. In essence it is the same thing and I start banging on the table and saying, “Give me some service, give me some service!” 

In order to truly serve, one must be humble. I apologize for such a trivial truth, but I think we should carefully think over it. In order to truly serve, so that service is service I need a minimum amount of humility when I'm not doing this not because I want to, but because someone else wants me to, because it pleases someone else, not me. And because we are not used to this we have no understanding of this, therefore it’s so difficult for us to truly serve. And then there comes this natural resentment. As long as a person does what he wants, as long as he’s engaged in what he wants, it’s very easy to remain nice and all these snakes are not going to come up. When I do not what I want and but what I was told to do, this is where the problem begins. That's where this entire lower nature starts emerging from within. And before that we were considered one of the humble and the good, but when we’re asked to do this I start to resent, I start to quarrel, I start to envy, I start to think, ”Why is he engaged in this service and I am engaged in this one? This service is higher and this service is lower!” Can a person be deprived of service? No he can’t. Service is a state of heart. Service means when I want to do something that is pleasing. Can my serving someone cause troubles? No, it can’t, it can’t by definition, because service is what I do in order to please someone. Unfortunately, we can’t serve and we don’t know how to serve and when we’re faced with this what happens to us? When we’re told to do something and we don’t want to do it what do we start doing? We start criticizing. There is such a star in the Vedic firmament called kritika. By the way, the month of kartik is its derivative. It’s the most terrible star. Those born under this star are a very difficult type or people. I don’t know whether the word criticism is derived from it, but anyway this word is there in Sanskrit. These are extremely quarrelsome and complex personalities who don’t like and are unable to serve. 

What happens in the process of bhajana-kriya is that we try to reset our program, the program of enjoyment in the material world to the spirit of service, to a completely different, radical revolution that must take place in our heart. Therefore in varnasrama people were first of all trained to serve thus ensuring that if at some point a person takes up the path of bhakti it would be easy and natural for him to serve on the path of bhakti. Whereas we’ve been brought up in a society where service is not valued, where service is despised, where service is something to be ashamed of. That is why it’s so difficult for us and that’s why the path of bhakti is so difficult for us. In Vedic society a wife was supposed to serve whom? Her husband. Children were supposed to serve whom? Their parents. Disciples were supposed to serve whom? Their master. Householders were supposed to serve whom? The sannyasis or the guests who come. In Vedic society it’s a universal principle, it’s the backbone on which everything else rests. People are told that the most important thing a person can do, the most important thing a person can do, the most proper thing a person can do is to serve and to serve means: I don’t think of myself. When people do that, they begin to feel good, they become happy because serving is the nature of the soul in any case, this is the dharma of the soul. But we were never trained to do this and we find a thousand, a million excuses why we shouldn’t serve. Do children serve their parents in today's society? No, they don’t serve their parents, they don’t care a fig about them! Does a wife serve her husband? No, she doesn’t. The husband also doesn’t serve anyone, no one serves the guests. Do the students at school serve their teachers? They put frogs or pins on their seats. These are the relationships that permeate everything from beginning to end, from top to bottom. Service as such doesn’t exist. But in Vedic society a person was trained to do this and when he took up the path of devotional service, his progress was fast. And our progress is so slow exactly at this stage of bhajana-kriya... Bhaktivinoda says: how long should bhajana-kriya or anartha-nivritti take? A couple of days. Two, three or four days, several days. And they’re immediately followed by nistha, ruci, asakti. And how long does this process takes us? Well, yes, Aditi very optimistically says that it may take two or three lives (laughs). But tha’s because of one simple reason – because we don’t know what this means, we don’t feel, we don’t understand and all the time resist it. The farther, the more. This Western culture completely deprives people of the spirit or understanding of what it means to serve others. 

Several times I’ve told the story of Vibhu Caitanya Prabhu, Srila Prabhupada’s disciple, who joined the devotees when he was well past 50. He died last year, he left this world. He came to Srila Prabhupada, he was an elderly Bengali man who has brought up his children, he heard about Srila Prabhupada, he listened to Srila Prabhupada, came to him in the Krishna-Balaram Mandir and he completely surrendered to him and for him there were no long excruciating painful stages of anartha-nivritti. The only thing he did – he came and went straight to the kitchen and in the kitchen he cooked all the offerings for the Deities from the beginning to the end and when Srila Prabhupada heard him sing while preparing those offerings, he said that he doesn’t even have to chant mantra. Because his other Western disciples would say, „He doesn’t chant mantra, he doesn’t chant mantra! This Bengali is in maya!” Srila Prabhupada just heard him sing and said “He doesn’t have to chant any mantra, he’s already serving Krishna”. Those of you who were lucky enough to be in the Krishna-Balaram Mandir a few years ago, when he wasn’t able to cook in the kitchen anymore, his service consisted in distributing the caranamrita. It’s an extremely simple thing, I’m sure many of you would approach and see this silent man who would give you a few drops of caranamrita with such a love that gave you the shivers. And when I looked into his eyes, his eyes were shining like two diamonds. And he used to do this simple service, he used to sit there the whole day without doing anything special, without doing any feats, without making any big statements, without doing anything. Every day he would just give a few drops to everyone who came. People would leave him with a changed heart, because he would do his small service in a way that no one else was able to do it. And the most amazing thing about him was – and I didn’t know about it – that when he came Srila Prabhupada told him ... After coming for a while he came in and asked, “Gurudeva, what shall I do? What can I do?” Srila Prabhupada told him, “Stay here, don’t go anywhere, you’ll find everything here in the Krishna-Balaram Mandir”. He lived there for more than thirty years and he’s never left the boundaries of the Krishna-Malar Mandir. Once when he got sick he was forcibly taken away to the hospital, that was the only time he left it. His spiritual master told him that and he said, “Okay, well, why should I go somewhere else?” He didn’t even know the way to Keshi Ghat, not to mention Loi Bazaar. One may ask, “Why live in Vrindavan if he didn’t go Loi Bazaar?” (laughs) Srila Prabhupada told him a simple thing. Would any of you be able to achieve such a perfection? There was no anartha-nivritti for him, no vyudha-vikalpa or visaya-sangara – he went straight away to nistha. And this is the advantage of the proper culture. If we are talking about the proper culture, the culture of varnashrama which Srila Prabhupada oftentimes spoke about, its advantage consists precisely in the fact that when people are brought up in the proper culture, bhakti becomes a very simple and natural way of life. A person is not torn apart, a person can very easily take to bhakti and find happiness in bhakti and reach a very high level. Because when he was leaving all the inhabitants of the Krishna-Balarama Mandir, everyone was saying, “He’s a real saint! A true real saint!” And this is what we should remember.

Now we can see why it’s so difficult for us to get purified of our anarthas. Is it now clear what we should do so that our anarthas go away as soon as possible? Chaitanya Mahaprabhu says that it’s very easy to be purified of our anarthas. We must chant the holy name every day in a humble state of mind, thinking ourselves to be lower than a blade of grass, more tolerant than a tree, expecting no respect to ourselves – that’s it! Every day I chant mantra in this state, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. Well, actually, we could have ended here, but since we have a few more minutes before we start the initiation ceremony, I’ll say a little more. 

What is anarthas? The anarthas of which we must get purified, what is that? Someone gave the right answer – these are our habits. The habits and qualities that we’ve formed or acquired during our existence in the material world, needed to facilitate our existence in the material world. That’s why it’s so difficult to get rid of them. Does a person need lust in the material world? What am I without lust? Who will need me if I have no lust? No one will need me if I have no lust! Who will love me if I have no lust?! Anger – is it useful in the material world? Can you survive in the material world without anger? Anger is a force that can overcome any obstacles. I have to achieve something, don’t I? Do we need envy in the material world? You can’t live in the material world without envy! How can you live? It’s not interesting to live in the material world without envy! Anger, illusion ... Pride – is pride a nice thing? Is it useful? All this is a highly useful stuff, it's an important and useful stuff! Because here they are considered to be artha, these are our values ​​in the material world. Anger is a value, illusion, pride, envy, greed ... Greed – isn’t it a value? How can one exist here without greed? But when we take up the path of bhakti and the path of bhakti means that we turn to 180 degrees, we make a complete turn-around, we try to live in a different way, to build our lives in accordance with different values, because we want to attain a different state of consciousness. A state of consciousness that is spirit, in which Krishna will talk to us and in that state of consciousness the values are different. What is our value? - Love, humility, patience, kindness. In the material world these are values, undoubtedly, people appreciate these things, but at the same time they hold dear the anarthas and since we hold dear the anarthas, when we must part with them, what do we do? We shout: “I’m not going to give them up!” Because we think that this is artha, that this is something we need, that we won’t do without it, we don’t want. What we must understand first of all when we come to anartha-nivritti is that what we don’t want to part with our anarthas, there’s no way, I need them! That even in the devotees society I won’t do without them, because how can that be? These are our protective mechanisms. The anarthas are something we have acquired, it’s a useful stuff for us to live here in the material world and to realize our program of enjoying in the material world. But if we want to realize a different program, a higher program, we have to get rid of them. And it is exactly because these anarthas have appeared as a result of my existence in the material world Visvanatha Chakravarti Thakur classifies them on the basis of what? On the basis of their origin, on the basis of where they have appeared from, on the basis of their root. On the basis of how easy it will be to pull these anarthas out. We have deep roots, we hold on to all this, we don’t want to part with this. And a very important principle of classification, which he gives, is how easily we can get rid of them. He says there are four kinds of anarthas in accordance with their origin, their source: 

First anarthas are those that appear as a result of sinful activities; 

Other anarthas appear as a result of pious activities; 

There are anarthas that appear as a result of practicing bhakti, 

And there are anarthas that appear as a result of aparadhas. 

And which are the most deeply rooted anarthas in our hearts? The aparadhas, yes. The first two types of anarthas are very deeply rooted but not that deep. And here we should properly consider the following: why are aparadhas most difficult to get rid of? 

Visvanatha Chakravarti Thakur explains that there are five degrees of eradication of the anarthas. He says that first the anarthas are partially eradicated, one, two, three of them. Then they are eradicated massively – that’s the second stage. At the third stage they’re almost completely eradicated. At the fourth stage they’re completely eradicated and at the fifth stage they’re absolutely eradicated. He gives these five stages of eradication and he explains that the anarthas that appear as a result of aparadhas, at the level of bhajana-kriya, when we begin to serve, they’re eradicated partially. At the level of nistha they’re massively eradicated, that is about 75% of them are gone, 25% are left. At the level of bhava when a person’s reached the preliminary stage of love, they’re almost completely eradicated. At the level of prema they’re completely eradicated. They’re absolutely eradicated only when a person goes back to the spiritual world. The deepest root, the most profound thing is when a person commits an offense in his practice of chanting the holy name or in his spiritual practice – and besides the chanting there’s also sravanam, kirtanam, visnoh smaranam and so on – the consequences can be most sad, because the opportunity for a person to commit an aparadha remains even at the level of bhava. Rupa Goswami says that even when a person has reached the level of bhava, that is he’s already serving Krishna and he has love, even here the tendency to commit aparadhas still remains. 

And Visvanatha Chakravarti Thakur gives the example of Dvividha Gorilla. Who's Dvividha Gorilla? Yes, she was in Lord Ramachandra’s army, she served Lord Ramachandra, she carried those huge boulders on her back, she threw them and she built the bridge and she was very happy doing it, and then she thought, “I'm the greatest of all devotees ... I’m the best gorilla of Lord Ramachandra!” And she was envious of Lakshmana, she thought, “What is he doing? I'm doing it all! I’m doing service and he’s who knows who!” As a result, she turned into what? Into a demoness. Because as soon as a person commits – and we must clearly understand this process, we must be very well aware of what happens when a person commits an aparadha. Aparadha – why are its roots so deep – because it’s committed at a very profound level. When a person commits a sin – and Visvanatha Chakravarti Thakur explains that the anarthas that appear as a result of committing sins at the level of nistha are destroyed how? Completely. And at the level of ruci they’re destroyed absolutely, no trace of them remains – there’s already a taste and there’s no trace of the past sins, there’s no taste to the past sins. Once a person reaches nistha all sinful consequences are virtually destroyed, there’s no karma. At the level of nistha a person has no karma, in principle, there are no previous samskaras, there are no problems, there are just none. What is the difference between the one and the other? Why is one destroyed so slowly and with such an effort and why are its consequences much deeper, though, it would seem, the anarthas that have appeared as a result of committed sins in the past are lingering with me not from a single lifetime, I’ve brought them from my previous life. Why? What is the difference between the one and the other? Because when I commit a sin .... What is sin? Sin is when I'm trying to enjoy through the body, through the mind, when I completely identify with the body and mind, right? Sin is when I live and I have my own ideas about what I am: I’m the body, I’m the mind and I act at this level; my entire activity takes place at this level. My identification is only at the level of the body and the level of the mind. And in order to give some pleasure to my body, my mind, in order to somehow excite myself and fall into some state, I eat meat, I take drugs, I drink, I smoke, and all this doesn’t affect me as such, this doesn’t affect the deepest layers of my existence, because I still don’t identify, I don’t consider myself an eternal soul. Aparadha is committed in another state of mind; aparadha is when I’ve already realized that I’m a soul. I’ve deeply realized, I’ve found that eternal spark which is connected with God, which aspires to God, and, being at this level of consciousness, I start doing something completely opposite to bhakti. I do something that displeases who? The guru, the Vaishnavas and Krishna or the Holy Dhama. I do something that causes their displeasure and is the exact opposite of bhakti. And if I sin already being a Vaishnava, already knowing that I’m a soul, that I’m immortal, then it’s an aparadha. This doesn’t mean that now ... because the mind will immediately begin to calculate: “Ah, it’s clear, we can now commit sins, the main thing is not to commit aparadhas”. No, that’s it! You have no hope anymore, because all the bad things that you commit will be an aparadha. That's it! And it will generate deep consequences and that's the problem. This is the problem of any spiritual practice, because that’s how the spiritual practice begins, and a person needs to get up, he needs to make this first step, it’s absolutely necessary to make this first step, it’s absolutely necessary to understand that I’m actually a soul. Because, without understanding this we won’t be able to make any other steps. But we must also understand that if I’ve made ​​this step it puts me on a very high level of commitment and I must behave in a completely different way, because all the bad things I do now is of a much more perverse nature. When I do that now at our level, do it consciously, already knowing that I’m a soul, giving vent to my envy, allowing my lower nature and everything else to be revealed, I am actually deliberately going against the spiritual truths. Bhakti means that I’ve accepted the spiritual truth, I’ve let the spiritual truth into my heart, and an aparadha means that I'm trying to kick it out of there. Bhakti is very powerful, it has a very potent and enormous power like that of the sun. The sun can burn down all the dirt, right? The Sun can purify anything. But what is aparadhas? Yes, the aparadhas are the clouds that shade us from the sun, that cover our consciousness, rendering it very dull and dark. And in this dark consciousness we don’t let in, we don’t allow the power of bhakti to penetrate our hearts, we don’t allow the holy name to penetrate deep inside, we don’t allow bhakti to influence us and therefore we don’t get the results that are described in the scriptures. 

Therefore, a person who has taken up the path of bhakti, the main thing he must do is to try in a conscious and a most thorough way to avoid offences, offences to the guru, the Vaisnava and Krishna. He must – and I tried to speak about this in our several classes – that we must try to see in others the soul that is aspiring to Krishna. If I act, if I have realized that I’m a soul, what prevents me from doing this? What prevents me from doing this ultimately? Nothing. Actually nothing but the habit or some perverse understanding that even here I must enjoy in one way or another some worn out and unjustified means. All this already hasn’t justified itself, we’re disappointed in the material life and this hasn’t given us true happiness. Have offences given us any happiness? Can a person be happy with them? No, he can’t. And still we continue doing this here. And this creates very deep problems in a person’s heart. 

I’ve told the story of holy Tukaram, about the way a holy man takes the offences or the insluts addressed to him. And if we don’t have a taste for chanting the holy name, if we don’t have a taste for practicing bhakti, what is the answer? The only correct answer for having no taste is what? Yes, because of offenses; because for one reason or another we commit offences. And the most common offense, the worst offense, as “Padma-purana” says, the gravest offense of all, the most striking offense of all is what? Yes, that’s sadhu-ninda when we offend a Vaishnava. And who is a sadhu? People think that a sadhu is someone who does everything perfectly, who does everything right and impeccably. All the others can be offended. If I find at least one such sadhu, for sure I won’t offend him, I’ll run away from him so as not to offend him. Who is a sadhu? Yes, a person who serves Krishna, a person who wants to serve Krishna and a person who’s purposefully going to Krishna, a person who has no other desires. If I offend such a person even if he acts in a certain way, even if I tell the truth ... Sometimes people say, “Well I'm telling the truth!” Right? We tell the truth, we are truthful guys, right? We simply point out the truth! The shortcomings, yes, out of habit. The acaryas say, in particular Sridhar Swami says that aparadha is dosa-kirtanam. Dosa means what? A shortcoming, and kirtan? Yes, when I praise a devotee at every corner for his shortcomings, when I discredit him. Dosa-kirtanam means when I try to see these shortcomings. And I must clearly understand why I see these shortcomings. Yes, because I look through the prism of my own shortcomings. Because my vision is set in such a way that I will see these shortcomings, I must ... Bilvamagala Thakur pulled out his eyes and I must repent when I see shortcomings. 

In one of his purports to the Fourth Canto of “Srimad-Bhagavatam” Visvanatha Chakravarti Thakur describes four stages of sadhu, holiness, and four stages of asadhu, four stages of sinfulness. He says that the lowest level of a sadhu, the main quality of a sadhu, the essential quality of a sadhu is that he is adosa-darsi, he doesn’t see shortcomings. And Visvanatha Chakravarti Thakur says that this quality is manifested in four degrees, and the opposite is also manifested in four degrees. He says that the first degree of manifestation is when I see a defect but I interpret it as a good quality. For example, someone is chastising me and is being rude to me. How will a sadhu take that? He’ll say this is for my own sake. Yes, maybe he chastises me in a rude way but basically that’s good because I’ll benefit from it. Respectively, how will an asadhu take it? He sees a good quality and interprets it as a bad one. For example – I’ll give you Visvanatha Chakravarti Thakur’s examples – Visvanatha Chakravarti Thakur says that there are people who’re doing charity work, they distribute food, something like that and an asadhu sees it and what does he say? “Aaaa, rascals, they’re doing that only for their own profit! Aaa, how clever they are! Aaaa, all they want to do is rob them, get something out of these people!” This is an asadhu. 

The next stage of a sadhu is when a sadhu doesn’t see bad qualities in principle. He just doesn’t see any bad qualities and that’s it. There is a bad quality but he doesn’t see it. And Visvanatha Chakravarti Thakur gives an example, he says that a sadhu looks at the traders and what are the traders like? Traders are very hospitable, have you noticed? Especially in Vrindavan, they say, “Come in, dear!” They’re very polite and they treat you, they praise you ... and what kind of quality is that? Its’ a good quality, right? (laughs) Well, it’s clear that they behave like that not because they’re so good, not because they’re so kind, but because they want you to buy something from them. But a sadhu sees this and thinks, ”What a nice man! All the nice people have gathered at the Loi Bazaar! What a kind man, what a hospitable man!” A sadhu actually doesn’t see this, he cannot see this motif in the other person. And, accordingly, how does an asadhu act? He cannot see any good quality, he cannot, in principle! And Visvanatha Chakravarti Thakur gives the example of a sannyasi. He says that people see a sannyasis and they can’t see any good qualities in him. The only thing they see: “The way they guzzle! (laughter) They are just served and served!” They see nothing else but this. They don’t see in principle. 

He says there is a third stage of manifestation of holiness and a third stage, respectively, of the opposite quality. This is when a person doesn’t see any bad qualities in another person and when he sees some some good quality, a tiny little good quality, in his eyes this quality becomes such a virtue, just an incredible virtue. And he gives an interesting example. He says that we see an example from real life, that there was a sadhu and this sadhu was sitting in Vrindavan wrapped in a blanket. At that point a robber with a sword runs up to him, takes away his blanket, grabs it, gives him a solid blow and runs off. And this sadhu thinks, “What a good man, what a good man! He must’ve been freezing, he must’ve been suffering, he robbed me of that blanket and now he’s warmed up. And he could’ve killed me but didn’t do that! What a kind man – sward in hands but didn’t killed me! How lucky I am to come across such a kind man!” This is the third stage of saintliness. And, respectively, he gives an example of the opposite quality, also a very interesting one, and also an example of a sannyasi. He says, respectively, when a person doesn’t see any good qualities and sees a tiny bad quality and inflates it in his eyes. And he says, if a bad person sees a sannyasi and this sannyasi stays at the house of some householder overnight and the bad person sees that and says, “What kind of a sannyasis is that? They’re supposed to sleep in the woods! Why is he sleeping who knows where?” That is, he doesn’t see the good qualities but he sees a tiny bad quality and thinks, “This one is staying overnight”. And he’s thinking, “For sure he’s doing this in order to steal something at night from that householder, to steal some spoon”. And he’s thinking, “One must keep a close eye on this sannyasi”. 

Recently I was in the town of Gorky, in Nizhny Novgorod, I stayed there in an apartment and was just listening to this lecture, and when I was leaving, I saw that some of my disciples has put a spoon from that place, I found this spoon in my luggage and I thought, “Wow, Visvanatha Chakravarti Thakur was right! (laughter)

And there is also a fourth degree: a fourth degree of manifestation of saintliness and a fourth degree of manifestation of our perverted nature. It is when a person doesn’t see in principle anything wrong at all, doesn’t see anywhere. And, on the contrary, a person of a very perverted nature how does he look at the whole world? Yes, he doesn’t see anything good at all. He looks at the devotees’ society and doesn’t see anything good! Have you seen such people? They don’t see anything good at all! “There’s nothing good in this devotional service, there’s nothing good in ISKCON, in these devotees!” Have you ever heard such statements that all the devotees are rascals? All of them. When people are saying such things, listen to yourself sometimes. When people say that “all devotees are rascals or all devotees are this and that”. What does that mean? What does that mean in the first place? This demonstrates the quality of my vision, the prism through which I see the world and therefore Visvanatha Chakravarti Thakur warns us against this. He says that the offense of a Vaishnava is the most dangerous offence, because an offense of a Vaishnava can pull out the roots of our bhakti. It’s more dangerous than offending Krishna, because when we offend Krishna bhakti will be just a little obscured. It will be obscured by this offense and the material desires, the material tendencies in my heart will grow stronger; when we offend a Vaishnava bhakti can be completely destroyed, totally, irrevocably. And that is the problem. 

That is why the consequences of offenses are so sad and therefore our only behavior in a Vaishnava society should be what? Yes, in a state of humility and with tears in my eyes I must ask forgiveness from anyone I’ve somehow offended. Sometimes people say that only a sadhu can be offended ... No, any person whom I’ve offended. It might be that sometimes I offend the most insignificant Vaishnava, and Krishna won’t like this because Krishna judges in a different way. Krishna judges the Vaishnavas on the basis of their degree of sincerity. From our point of view he might be very insignificant, he takes no special position, he’s just a nobody. But Krishna understands and sees his sincerity better than we do. For us, he’s God knows who, some bhakta, and we think, “We can abuse this bhakta like anything, exploit him like anything, do anything to him!” And he’s not a bhakta, he’s a sadhu and Krishna thinks, “What an amazing person!” Therefore it’s so important to always keep this in mind and not to offend any of the Vaishnavas in any way. We must always ask for forgiveness, we must praise the other Vaishnavas, we must give presents to the other Vaisnavas, we must reveal our heart to the Vaisnavas and then our society will become very nice. But all this is based, once again, on one principle, on the principle that I want to serve. If I have this one sincere desire, I will naturally behave in this way. 

Actually my lecture is gradually turning into a lecture on the offenses against the holy name, and I’m not going to enumerate any other offenses of the holy name because this is the main offense against the holy name. The essence of anartha-nivritti is that a person must work on the eradication of precisely this quality from his heart. If a person solves this single problem – no need to solve ten of them, with ten we’ll get confused, we’ll forget them ...leave alone those ten – if we don’t offend the Vaisnavas who somehow or other have dedicated themselves to serving Krishna, who’re somehow or other trying to serve Krishna, trying to serve other Vaisnavas, trying to serve the spiritual master, if we remember well this one thing and constantly work inwardly on our attitude to everything that we do, if we always think that I'm more humble than a blade of grass and more tolerant than a tree and that it’s in this state that I can really feel the taste of Krishna's service, an amazing inner taste, an abyss of inner taste that will be revealed to me by Krishna’s mercy, when I start rendering devotional service in this way. If I understand this my anartha-nivritti will end up very quickly. Very quickly, and there will be no problems. 

But if, out of habit and out of my desire to be proud, out of my desire to somehow enjoy here, I offend the other Vaishnavas and don’t see their amazing qualities, then this stage will extend over many long and painful years and our lower nature will be constantly, as I explained at the very beginning, pulling us down. The soul will be aspiring to somewhere but our bhakti won’t be strong enough. As I explained, too, in one of the lectures, that the very method of bhakti is powerful in itself, it’s like a fire. The method of bhakti doesn’t need any rituals, doesn’t need anything, the holy name is potent by itself. The only thing that can prevent bhakti is what? Aparadhas. The only thing that can prevent fire is what? If we set fire to wood it will light up but only if the wood is dry. If the wood isn’t dry, if the wood is wet, it won’t catch fire. And if this inclination, this habit of committing offences remains in our heart and first of all offenses against the holy name and of all the offenses against the holy name first of all offenses of Vaisnavas, then our heart will remain wet and no matter how hard we try to set it on fire, striking matches ... 16 rounds of striking, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare / Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare, it won’t catch fire. We’ll strike again and again but our heart will be wet and there will be no effect, bhakti will not grow because the anarthas will oppose this growth, they will stifle this growth. Whereas in principle, everything is very easy: we should simply love the devotees, we should simply be grateful – these are simple things. Bhakti starts with very simple things: with gratitude, with the ability to see the good things in people, with the ability to praise the others, with the ability to serve together, to depend on the others, to pray for the others – everything is very simple. 

And now we have a small but very important workshop. We break into twos, threes, fours, as you wish and start praising each other. We should find good qualities never mind how difficult that might be; no one should be left without this. Just non-stop. And not only each other, some other people we know – without end! 

Workshop… 

From your happy faces I saw that you liked this exercise (cries of “Haribol” and applause). 

In fact, the meaning of this description is that bhakti is very simple, that bhakti is a very simple and natural method. It is based on very simple and natural things: on gratefulness, on softness of the heart, on openness, on not taking offense – all these are very simple things and in not making up, in not ascribing to the others motifs that they don’t have but trying to see their strong sides. And our life can turn into a spiritual world, everything around us will be spiritualized if we learn to live by these principles. So, everything’s very simple, we just have to follow these principles: always, everywhere, consistently, without fearing and realizing that this is the truth. I was explaining in one of the lectures that sraddha means the ability to hold onto the truth, these are eternal truths and they work anywhere, anytime, in any circumstances. These are the eternal truths by which our soul is created: serving, loving each other, giving – these’re timeless truths and our lives should aspire towards them, we must strive for them and all this will be very easy and joyful, if we follow these principles. 

We should now probably go to the next stage. I’ll now answer several important questions. I was asked that all those who are now getting ready for receiving initiation, come closer to the fire, all the more that it's cold, you can warm up (laughs). I’ll answer some important questions that I have here although they are all interesting and important. Let's hear. 

A very good question: When a person is especially conscious of his anarthas, he wants to completely shut himself off from the others and stop associating with them out of fear that they will see them. How to overcome this desire?

Answer: Actually, it’s a very good question. When we see some of our defects, we want to escape, go away, shut off, because we start fearing that others will judge us in a wrong way. But actually, if we go away and shut off, we’ll be left with this anartha. If, on the contrary, we come with this and tell someone about it, ask for advice some person whom we trust, if we somehow admit this to him, that I have this, and that it hurts me, then this anartha will go away. This is the simplest, the easiest and the most natural way – you have to expose it, to tell about it, to not be afraid to admit it, laugh at it, look at it from outside and when we do this we immediately feel better. Who’s had this kind of experience that you talked about some anartha and you felt better, it disappeared and stopped influencing, torturing you, stopped having power over us? It could still remain in some form, but it didn’t have the strength because we ourselves are nourishing these anarthas when we hold on to them, when we're trying to conceal them, when we kind of cherish them within whereas we just need to take them out and speak about them. This is also a very important point. 

Another question, I was caught in an inconsistency: Maharaj, in the first lecture you said that one can practice bhakti without having faith and can attain the spiritual world, but it’s impossible to attain prema. At the same time, the “Gita” says (Bg, 9.3): 

asraddadhanah purusha

dharmasyasya parantapa

aprapya mam nivartante

mrityu-samsara-vartmani

“Those who are not faithful in this devotional service cannot attain Me, O conqueror of enemies. Therefore they return to the path of birth and death in this material world.”

Answer: Was I wrong or not? (Response from the audience: No) Thank you. (laughs) No, actually there is no contradiction. Krishna pronounces this verse at the very beginning of the ninth chapter, where he speaks of bhakti, of bhakti-yoga. And normally, for a person to be able to achieve something on the path of bhakti, the qualification for bhakti is sraddha or faith. And the standard way of attaining the spiritual world is through sraddha. But there are exceptions, and these exceptions are also described in the Puranas: about the mouse that had no sraddha whatsoever; nevertheless it gnawed at the wick and the wick started to burn brightly and Krishna thought, “Wow, the mouse offered Me a lamp!” And in its next life this mouse was born as a queen and that queen used to offer Krishna a lamp all her life, that taste and memory remained with her, she returned to the spiritual world. But that's okay, one may think that in that queen’s life there was some faith, but there were other cases where a kite was sitting on the peak of the temple, on the dome and a hunter shot at it and the kite fell off; the dog jumped up, grabbed it and carried that half-dead hike or bird around the altar and Krishna thought, “Okay, bhakti is powerful and if someone shows Me respect – and respect can be shown there – therefore the bird has gone to the spiritual world. 

This is all an evidence that ... Krishna speaks about the normal way. The normal way applies to us, because in one way or another we’re all more or less guilty of aparadhas and in order to overcome our aparadhas we need sraddha. Since we have aparadhas – and Jiva Goswami explains that all this applies to the innocent creatures who have no aparadhas – for them bhakti immediately manifests its power, it’s like setting fire to dry grass – it immediately starts burning. But since our heart is contaminated by skepticism and misunderstandings and offensive attitude towards the manifestations of spiritual energy here, we need sraddha and sraddha will be the driving force that will carry us through this difficult and painful stage. Because if there’s no sraddha, no faith, as soon as a person is faced with the first difficulties he’ll go away. To be able to overcome these painful, problematic things that we have to face, we need a very strong faith. And where does strong faith come from? From the sastras, from understanding of the sastras and from hearing. Strong faith arises when I hear about the scripture every day, when I listen to this katha, understanding that that’s necessary, understanding that to be the goal. This will give me faith that will allow me to overcome this. Have I wriggled out? (laughs)

Question: By what criteria can we determine the beginning of anartha-nivritti? 

Answer: By what criteria can we determine the beginning of anartha-nivritti? 

trinad api sunicena 

taror api suhisnuna 

amanina manadena 

kirtaniyah sada-harih 

Anartha-nivritti is when the holy name is constantly vibrating in a person's heart. And there aren’t any heavy psychological aspects associated with its practice. Anartha-nivritti means that he has a clear understanding and a clear faith, clear, precise vision of the goal and this means that he’s overcome the major part of anarthas. 

Question: In today's lecture it was said that it’s very important to cooperate (it wasn’t today) with the other devotees, not to create a sampradaya of ones own. But what to do if the sampradaya is already there, with senior devotees unable to cooperate with each other and younger devotees forced to jump from one of the sampradayas into the other for fear of Vaishnava aparadhas and for fear of being left without leadership, taking sides?

Answer: Even if you’re in a situation like that where there’re certain groups and each person thinks that only he behaves in the right way, you still should somehow try to take a neutral position, taking the devotees’ leadership but without becoming sectarian. And it’s an art. However, basically, if a person is a bit intelligent, he’ll be able to understand how to act. Yes, I can accept the patronage of some senior Vaishnava, who, it might be, doesn’t cooperate with the other senior Vaisnavas – at the same time I can maintain relationships with the other senior Vaisnavas, serving them without being a member of that small sect.

I have warned you several times during our retreat against this danger. In particular, this danger is there when people are grouped around one guru trying to form a sect or a group within a group. We all serve one mission; we all serve the spiritual principles and the spiritual teachings left by Srila Prabhupada and our main task is to give this teaching to the others as purely as possible. And there is no, absolutely no reason why we could not do it, at the same time not forming groups or such a mentality. Because every group is mainly formed – especially within a certain movement – on the principles of pride. Therefore the very basis or foundation of such cliques is always false: “My guru is the best! My mentor is the best! Only we know what to do! Our type of service is the best! We’ll show them all!” In the formation of such a group there’s always this desire and intention to prove something to everyone else. And to prove to whom? Mainly to the Vaisnavas. What do we want to prove? That we are right. And not so much to prove that we’re right but to prove to them that they’re wrong, right? That they’re doing something wrong. Therefore, if I don’t have this desire, I’ll get ... There’s even a nice Russian saying: a tender calf sucks from two cows. If this is possible, if a calf can do this, why can’t a devotee do it? If the calf’s smart enough to suck from two cows, why can’t the younger devotee maintain good relationship with the senior devotees, even if they are, for whatever reason, unable to come to terms. He can, if he’s got the right attitude.

Question: In preaching sound is the most important thing; but what about behavior? If a person speaks but he’s got bad qualities?

Answer: There are two aspects of this issue. First, we must still consider him a sadhu and I have already talked about this. But at the same time – and Srila Jiva Goswami speaks about this in his “Bhakti-sandarbha” and Srila Prabhupada many times talked about this in his lectures and everywhere else – the preacher must show a perfect example of behavior. Sadhus may be different. There are sadhus who behave very badly, this could be. As Krishna says, there are sadhus who commit all possible sins. He is a sadhu, if he’s set to following in a determined way. But far not every sadhu can be a preacher. If I want to be a preacher, I must understand that I must behave perfectly, because preaching implies that people will look at me and judge by me. And if I want to preach – and this is a very powerful method of spiritual development – I must set very strict requirements to myself and to my acar, my behavior. Therefore, you cannot preach without behaving properly. 

Question: In his recent lectures Radhanath Swami he’s saying that proper chanting of the holy name will surely lead to the desire to serve the devotees. That is the fruit of the holy name. But what if there’s a desire to serve the devotees, but there’s no taste for the holy name – is it a paradox? 

Answer: This is a fact. Srila Radhanath Maharaj quoted Srila Prabhupada in the purport to one of the verses of “Caitanya-caritamrita”, where Srila Prabhupada explains a very important criterion: if we chant properly then we’ll certainly feel the desire to do something. We’ll certainly have the enthusiasm to do something, and not necessarily something great, it can be something simple, but we will want to do something. Like, yesterday I was talking to a devotee and he was telling me that “I had long been teaching bhakti, but now I want to do something, I just want to do something tangible. To me that is bhakti and I feel how important this is, to just go and do something without any … just go and wash something or clean”. 

And if you have such a desire, it means that you’re properly chanting the holy name, it means that you’re cnanting nicely, but it might be that the taste is not there yet. Visvanatha Chakravarti Thakur explains that sometimes a person has already reached a certain level, but he doesn’t get all the results, and he compares this to a tree: before bearing fruit, the tree will take some time. And a person might be already chanting the holy name already purely enough, but he might not yet feel all the fruits of this, the fruit of bhava or prema, but at some point this will come if he goes on doing so. This is one point.

Another possible point – and it’s you who should decide to what extent which of these answers is the right one. The second answer is that if there is a desire to serve the devotees, but there’s no taste for the holy name then maybe that desire is material. And I talked about this today, too, when people call something a service that essentially does not constitute a service. We like the society of devotees, we like receiving certain benefits of this so to speak service, and we have a taste, but actually this is based on our pride and it’s this pride that is the motive, the driving force for my service. And the person who asked this question and all the rest must answer it themselves, which of the possible answers is the right one: either it’s service to the Vaisnavas and then it’s uclear why there’s no taste for the holy name, or it’s a true serving to the Vaisnavas and that means that the taste for the holy name will certainly come, if not tomorrow, the day after tomorrow for sure, because the correct frame of mind cannot but result in that. 

Question: Four types of people come to Krishna: those who are suffering, seeking wealth, and so on. Does a devotee necessarily, in the process of attaining the Absolute, go through all these four types, or is the reason for which he’s joined sufficient? 

Answer: No. Krishna is not speaking about us. Krishna is speaking about the sakama-bhaktas who’ve come here, driven not by sraddha in bhakti but by the desire to satisfy some needs. We’ve come here driven by pure motivation. From the very beginning – and I was trying to explain it – despite of the fact that our heart may not be pure and free from desires, nevertheless, Srila Rupa Goswami says that this is the level of pure devotional service, even at the level of sraddha. Why is it pure devotional service? Because my goal is pure; because somehow or someone – be it the sastras or some charismatic preacher has given me the opportunity to feel and understand that I need love, I need bhakti and that’s all. Therefore it’s pure, I have this faith. I came here not because ... Yes, then some things appear ... Then I suddenly remember and think, “Well, I need money as well, things like that”, but that's another point, that’s something different. But a person doesn’t necessarily go through any of these stages at all. It's a completely different way: a person comes here because he wants to find love and among the four types of righteous people Krishna doesn’t list such a person, He’s forgotten about us because our path is a special one. He’s talking about other people. 

I think it’s not possible to delay everything anymore and I’ll just answer the last question. There are still many unanswered. 

Question: What do the mantras that you say before the lecture mean? 

Answer: What does ajanu-lambita-bhujau mean? Ajanu means a knee, lambita means reaching the knees. Bhujau – hands, yes. Ajanu-lambita-bhujau kanakavadatau – and all this is in the plural. This is the mantra or the verse that “Caitanya-bhagavata” begins with, glorifying Chaitanya and Nityananda. Ajanu-lambita-bhujau – Their hands reach to the knees; what does kanaka mean? – gold. Their skin is like molten gold, they’re emanating a bright effulgence. Ajanu-lambita-bhujau kanakavadatau... sankirtanaika-pitarau - They are who? - Yes, they are fathers. Pita means “daddy” – they’ve founded the movement of sankirtana. Sankirtanaika-pitarau kamalayataksau - kamalaya means lotus, aksau – eyes: Their eyes are as huge as lotuses. Visvambharau dvija-varau yuga-dharma-palau: They support this world, they maintain this world, the world exists thanks to Them, thanks to Them the world has hope. Dvija-varau – and They are the best, dvija-varau – of the brahmanas, They are the best of all people who’ve taken up the spiritual path and go along the spiritual path. Yuga-dharma-palau – They protect the yuga-dharma, they give the path to those who have gone blind in the dark age of Kali. Vande jagat priya-karau karunavatarau – therefore I pay my respectfully obeisances to these embodiments of the Lord’s mercy, karuna-avatara, who are dear to everyone in this world. This is the meaning of prayer. Thank you very much.