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

(“Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu”, Purva-vibhaga, 4.15-16)

Hare Krishna. I’d like to remind again about the meaning of our discussion. The meening of our discussion is to understand more clearly what we must do and what we mustn’t do. Everything else depends on Krishna. At least I myself must be confident that I do everything properly. The result may come, may not come. Krishna is absolutely self-willed, He’s not obliged to respond to our efforts, but our efforts themselves will already bring us satisfaction. Krishna says (Gita, 4.11) that when a person sincerely tries to do something, He’ll respond by all means: ye yatha mam prapadyante tams tathaiva bhajamy aham.

The problem is that we have a cunning mind. In Christian theology and philosophy this mind is called the Devil. The problem is that this devil is always with us. This devil constantly suggests to us some false ways of spiritual practice, constantly tries to confuse us. Like in the Christian tradition or culture there are many stories about how those who have taken the spiritual path start to be tempted by the devil, how various forms of temptations start coming to them. In fact, all this originates in our mind. In “Srimad-Bhagavatam” it’s also said that when a person takes the spiritual path, the demigods start to be jealous of him, unhealthy jealousy arises in them toward such a person and they try to lead him astray. We know a lot of stories in our tradition about how Indra sent apsaras to those who have taken the spiritual path and who are trying to perform austerities. Sometimes devotees even wander, “Why hasn’t Indra sent me an apsara yet? (laughter). It’s high time he got concerned and sent me some apsara”. The problem is that apsaras will not suffice for everyone. But apsaras come because the demigods are in our senses and apsaras come into our mind. Some brahmachari meditates and Indra sends him an apsara, a lovely image arises in his mind and he thinks, “Aaa, haribol! The fruit of my austerity has come to me!” 

In other words, the problems are within us, although sometimes they can take some external forms, the forms of external obstacles, which we have to overcome. But the main problems are within us, and the main problems are the problems recorded in our mind. That is why we have to act and act correctly. Sometimes our body in Sanskrit is called karma-ksetra, field of activity. In the “Bhagavad-gita” Krishna also calls it ksetra or field of activity. The body and mind is where the living being, the soul, acts. In another way it’s called kurukshetra, the battlefield where our battle unfolds. Here we must constantly seek Krishna’s help, Krishnа’s protection, so that Krishna saves us, so that He directs us, so that we constantly hear His voice that guides us into the right direction. 

I explained that in the course of practice our attachment to Krishna or Krishna’s attractiveness becomes greater and greater; that the meaning of spiritual practice or spiritual progress – and one can judge by this criterion about how much one is progressing on the spiritual path – in fact, the principle is very simple: the degree to which Krishna becomes attractive for me, the degree to which I feel His irresistible attraction; the criterion for our spiritual development is the degree of Krishna’s attractiveness. The more attractive Krishna and everything associated with Him is for us – His name, His entourage, His lilas – this is the criterion by which we can judge how much I’ve progress on the spiritual path. This attraction develops as we hear about Krishna, as we chant His holy name and spread His glory, His teachings and gradually we develop the ability to think about Him. Now we can not think of Krishna, even if we are told, “Think of Krishna” we’ll be thinking about averything else but Krishna. The proof of that is the japa time. We chant Krishna’s holy name but, quite paradoxically, we think about everything else, but Krishna, although the idea is that this is the very method, by which I must always remember Krishna and never forget Him. But this ability to remember Krishna will come to me, I shouldn’t doubt it even for a moment. 

But in the first period there is a struggle. This struggle between material desires and my desire or the soul’s yearning for Krishna is called anishthita-bhajana-kriya or unstable devotional service. When one reaches the level of nistha ... The level of nistha is something like a neutral zone. Up to nistha the material desires were stronger than Krishna’s attractiveness, they constantly pulled us back. On the level of nistha we no longer feel strong material desires, but the desire for Krishna isn’t so strong, and then gradually the desire for Krishna will be getting stronger. Nistha is the watershed, when the two vectors or the two forces that are tearing us apart from within are more or less balanced and our desire to attain Krishna from that moment on becomes strong. In a sense, this can be compared, as I’ve already said, to climbing of a hill. Today I am going to give another interesting comparison that will help us understand what this means. 

I have already explained that several factors at the first stage are highly favourable for my smooth spiritual progress. First of all, I should be highly respectful towards the vaisnavas, towards the guru, and not try in any case to pull them down to the material level, to see them as materialistic people. Such a temptation will always be there. The mind which is used to judge about everything from a material point of view will continue to pull them down to the material level. Visvanatha Chakravarti Thakur, commenting on the verse (Bhag., 1.2.17): 

srinvatam sva-kathah krisnah

punya-sravana-kirtanah

hridy antah stho hy abhadrani

vidhunoti suhrit satam

explains that if one is suhrit – friendly, satam – towards a sadhu or a devotee, if one retains this friendly disposition towards them and doesn’t become their enemy because of envy – and the risk of this is there – then Krishna Himself Who is within that person, hridy antah stho hy abhadrani – clears up all the dirt, vidhunoti. Krishna Himself by His mercy gradually starts to put order in our hearts, in our mind. This is one thing – our attachment to the devotees, our attempt to serve the devotees, our respect for the devotees, our solemn vow to never, under any circumstances, offend the devotees – this is first requirement which will help us to develop spiritually and overcome the obstacles. 

Another requirement – yesterday I spoke about it – is our understanding about where faith draws its strenghth from, where the root of faith is. The proper nutricious soil for faith is sastra, the scriptures on which I must be focused. The Scriptures is krishna-katha, I have to listen to them, I have to think about them, I have to read them. In one way or another I must come in contact with krishna-katha, because Krishna is non-different from the krishna-katha and when I hear about Krishna, Krishna enters my heart. Has anyone felt this, that Krishna enters my heart and my heart becomes lighter and better when I listen about Him, my heart cheers up. This is exactly what happens – Krishna enters our hearts and starts cleaning it from the inside. 

I spoke yesterday and I’ll say a few more words today about the balat-utpadita-sraddha according to the nomenclature or the definition of Vishvanath Chakravarti Thakur, the imposed or artificial faith, faith which is fed on other things. As Sanatana Goswami says, the milk touched by the lips of a serpent turns into poison and sometimes precisely in the same way the katha or the stories about Krishna which are the food, the true milk for my true faith, some stories which we hear or sometimes get in the association of devotees will poison our faith. First of all, those are the stories coming out of the mouth of an offender of the devotees. It’s a very sad thing, but unfortunately, sometimes people don’t realize how powerful a Vaishnava aparadha is. Sometimes entire lectures are dedicated to the analysis of the Vaishnava’s shortcomings. Sometimes the entire sadhana-bhakti is based on how to blame the other Vaishnavas, how to pull down the other Vaisnavas, how to point out their shortcomings and things like that. In a way I’m doing the same now, but I want to warn you against this, because when we listen to offenses of devotees, we become implicated in this offense and our faith starts to be ruined. When we hear how other devotees are being discussed, analysed, called by their names, how there is an attempt to degrade the other Vaisnavas or reduce them to the material level, then this has a detrimental effect on our faith and we lose our faith. The best way to lose our faith is to listen to offenses of Vaisnavas. 

In this sense Srila Prabhupada was an example, an amazing example of an uncompromising and pure Vaishnava, who passes on the teaching as it is. I ask you to please listen to Srila Prabhupada’s lectures. At the time I heard practically all Srila Prabhupada’s Iectures and it’s an amazing thing; if we have a look at Srila Prabhupada’s lectures, how he speaks philosophy – he goes from one verse to another, to a third one, to a fourth one, to a fifth one. He doesn’t get tired to explain to us that the sastras tell us about Krishna. Focusing our attention on Krishna and His own words, not on anything else, not allowing our attention to stray off to other matters. But there is a temptation to start speaking in a way that will be pleasant to people. Because sastra is not always a pleasant thing. To listen to sastra is sometimes uncomfortable; sometimes it seems to us that I’d rather listen to somehing lighter, to some lighter genre. But the easy genre – there is a false motive behind it all: to pease the audience. Sometimes, in order to please the audience one starts speaking about something and resorting to some safe oratory techniques or things like that. In itself, this desire is not very good. Listen again to the chaste way Srila Prabhupada speaks about Krishna. It’s impossible to find this desire to flirt with the audience in his words, impossible in principle, he doesn’t flirt with the audience. Loca-ranjanam – he doesn’t try to entertain the audience, he doesn’t try to earn cheap popularity.

One day some rock musician with his girlfriend and some friends, a famous rock musician, was brought to Srila Prabhupada. The first devotees, Srila Prabhupada’s followers, attached great importance to this visit; they thought, “If he becomes a devotee, he will glorify Swamiji” and wanted to make him a devotee by all means. Srila Prabhupada looked at him and started saying that one mustn’t engage in illicit sexual relationships. Of course, this was what the rock musician had come to hear about. That was the only thing he lacked in his life, everything else he had. He was never seen again! Good riddance! Because this desire to attract people at any cost is in itself false. When we try to attract someone at any cost, we inplant in his heart problems which will sooner or later crawl out and we shouldn’t in any case preach in this way or deceive people in this way. But true sanga begins with submitting ourselves to the mercy of a sadhu, of a holy man, where we trust him and don’t expect him to entertain us. 

There is another wonderful story told by Giriraj Maharaj about his meeting Srila Prabhupada. He came to the first lecture and he was keen on yoga, esotherics, new age at the time, he was looking for a guru, listening to various people, buddists, like that. After the lecture he asked Srila Prabhupada, “Swamiji, how can one find a bona fide guru?” Srila Prabhupada looked at him and said, “It all depends on what you want. Do you want to become God or do you want to become a servant of God?” At that moment Giriraj Maharaj remembered that above his bed there hung a big poster which read, “You are God!” and he understood everything. 

In other words, the listener should also be sincere. We must be sincere, we shouldn’t let our cunning mind cheat us so that we are bribed onto the hook of something bogus, this deception lives in us or the desire to get everything on the cheap. Everyone of us has the desire to go to the spiritual world on the cheap, right? And if someone tells us, “It’s all very simple, you don’t have to do anything, let’s keep the minimum, you don’t have to follow any principles”, people are diceived by such preaching very easyly. 

Like, not long ago, we were riding in a car with a devotee and a car honked us and took us to the side. A man got out of the car and started crying and saying, “I’ve been robbed, I’ve been robbed, help me please, I need to get there, I’m from Riga, I need to get there ...” And true, his number-plate was from Riga and he pulled out a watch and started saying, “This is a “Rolex”, I bought it for $ 3000, I’ll give it to you for 3000 rubles, please take it!” It was clearly a deception; it can’t be that a watch for $ 3000 is sold for 3000 rubles. But inside there is this hope that, “What if it’s true? What if it’s true that for 3000 rubles …?” And at the same time you’re justifying yourself and you think, “Well, anyway, even if I spend 3,000 rubles, never mind, ultimately, but what if it’s true, there is a chance that I’ll get $ 3000 ...” 

As a consequence, the “Rolex” migrated into our pockets (laughter), and of course, it didn’t work, not to mention all the other … But we have exactly the same problem when we take the spiritual path. Srila Prabhupada said, this is a world of cheaters and cheated, it’s a world of cheaters and those who want to be cheated”. On the spiritual path we should be very careful, we should catch ourselves on the fact that the desire to be deceived is there and that we want to hear something that we’ll like. Whereas, once again, sastras not always say things that we like and not everything that we like is truth. We should know this very well and we should remember this very well.

One of the signs of laukika-sraddha or balat-utpadita-sraddha – the imposed, artificial sraddha, sraddha which is not based on sastras and not based on the words of a true sadhu is that it’s blind. One wants to believe in this and as a result of this blind faith rise is given to various new rituals. There is a wonderful story which circulates in different versions in the spiritual circles, I’ll tell you one of them. Once upon a time there was guru, he had an asram and discipples and every evening the guru gave a “Bhagavad-gita” class. The guru had a cat in his asram and we know cats always go around by themselves and sometimes it would come in during the “Bhagavad-gita” class and disturb the hearing of the class, sometimes it would rub against someone. In the end, the guru ordered that the cat is put into a basket and placed next to him so that it wouldn’t mess around and continued giving classes. Over time, the guru left but the disciples remembered that whenever Guruji gave a “Bhagavad-gita”class there was a basket with a cat next to him. Therefore, when a new guru began giving “Bhagavad-gita”classes, he told his disciples to put a cat in a basket next to his vyasasana. The disciples would look at that cat, contemplating on the deep esoteric meaning of the presence of a cat in a basket during the “Bhagavad-gita” class and after about three generations one of the followers of the guru of that asram wrote a book on the importance of the presence of a cat in “Bhagavad-gita” classes (laughter). 

Faith not based on sastras is always blind. One of the signs of an artificial or imposed faith is its irrationality. If we read sastra, especially if we read the “Bhagavad-gita”, we’ll see that Krishna is extremely rational. Srila Prabhupada repeatedly emphasized: spiritual practice is a science, sastras give us this science. Science means universal truths which are always valid under any circumstances. Everything else that occurs on the surface of it is all some kind of superstition, irrational prejudices. 

I’d like to tell you another story, the story of Hanuman, do you want me to? We know that there was this great war in Lanka and that ultimately Hanuman, along with the monkeys came to Ayodhya. But Hanuman was very anxious about the monkeys because they can not behave properly, they live in the forest all the time, jumping from tree to tree, eating bananas, they are absolutely uncivilized. And here they came to the capital of the great empire, where great representatives of that culture live – how are they going to behave? Therefore Hanuman gathered the whole army and said, “So that not to be disgraced, you must watch how I act and do the same thing. Especially during prasadam, because I know you monkeys will eat in a way that’s impossible”. The monkeys were very scared because Hanuman was strong and they said, “Ok, we’ll do what you order us, we’ll do everything that you do, we’ll thoroughly follow you”. They were seated in rows; more than anything else monkeys love fried chick-pea. Those of you who’ve been to Vrindavan know that in places of particular gathering of monkeys the enterprising brajabasis sell packets of chick-pea to appease the monkeys or redeem from them the things they’ll stole from you. And there’s this special roasted chick-pea, sometimes it has this husk. 

The monkey sat in rows, all were ceremoniously served peas, all of them watching Hanuman, no one doing anything, God forbid disturb the etiquette. Hanuman was also given some chick-peas, he looked at it, took a pea, the pea was in a husk. He took and squeezed it and the pea went flying while the husk remained with him. He thought, “Wow, this pea is flying! I’ll show you how to fly!” And he jumped to catch the pea. The monkeys looked at him and said, “We now know how to eat in a decent way!” And each monkey began jumping ... 

At that moment Lord Ramacandra came in and saw the monkeys jumping around and he asked Hanuman, “What’s going on here?” Hanuman said, “These are just stupid monkeys, they blindly follow me. They follow without using their mind”. 

This is one of the signs of faith when one starts following blindly, absolutely uncritically, but blindly, without any reason, relying on prejudices. That is, once again, imposed faith is always irrational, it’s always associated with prejudice and it’s always fanatical. As I said yesterday, very often it’s centered on the cult of some personality when people artificially create a cult. Like, in the “Bhagavad-gita” it’s said that faith in passion is faith in whom? This is faith in people, faith in idols, this is the desire to create an idol for oneself, someone, who would lead me and whom I can follow blindly. People wait, people want to surrender to someone so that they close their eyes and don’t think themselves. Very often people think that the meaning of spiritual life consists exactly in finding someone whom I can follow blindly without thinking about anything. They think that spiritual life is an indulgence for not thinking oneself, for turning off our mind. A true master never allows his disciples transfer the entire responsibility on him. The temptation is precisely that: to approach the Guru Maharaja and say, “Guru Maharaja, that’s it, I’ve surrendered to you, I’m a surrendered soul, now I’ll blindly follow you”. What does Krishna tell Arjuna? He says, “I told you everything I could”. What's next? No, not just do as you know, “Think well about what what I’ve told you and then do as you find appropriate”. Free will must remain with us because when we, moved by the desire to cheat or cheaply get to the spiritual world, try to deprive ourselves, try to amputate this freedom of will, nothing good comes out, we don’t progress in spiritual life and it turns into a deception, a show, a game, it all turns into a show of surrender. One has kind of surrendered but at the same time he thinks that surrendering means not thinking, means doing something mechanically like a robot. This is another sign. 

I will name a few more signs because it’s an important thing for us. Sometimes we try to establish our faith on the foundation of some rumors which float around; among the devotees there is our own folklore, various fables and rumors – you can hear anything! People don’t read sastras but make up so many new rules, so many new things! There are several versions of it, but there is one which is my favorite. It’s true, the person that was involved in it said that it wasn’t like that when he heard my lecture, but still I’ll tell it; even if it wasn’t like that, it’s still a nice story (laughs). It might have been not like that, I fully admit that I could have misunderstood something, but in order to illustrate this point … Because sometimes people say things and we don’t ask them where they have taken that from. Or often, there is this expression, especially in Srila Prabhupada’s time, “Prabhupada said ...” Sometimes Prabhupada was told what he had said and he was very much surprised at how he could have said such a thing (laughter). “Prabhupada said, Prabhupada said ...” When someone begins his speech or supports his arguments by these words, “Prabhupada said”, put a big question mark to it and ask where he said that, when he said that, to whom he said that and whether he actually said that. Because when we try to justify everything by rumors, who knows what this can lead to. 

The story that happened to me – I have a disciple and I told her that I was ready to give her a second initiation, but to that end she should pass bhakti-sastri. She started going there but then she came to me and said, “No, I can not pass the bhakti-shstri...” Well, I said, “Okay, well, then wait until you pass the bhakti-sastri because this is second initiation, and the second initiation is a brahminical initiation and this means that one should know the sastras”. Some time after that, I see her going around as black as a thundercloud, the person is as black as a thundercloud and something’s wrong. And that lasted for quite a along time. Finally I asked, “What has happened, actually?” She almost burst into tears and said, “I know everything, I’ve realized everything, ...” “What do you know, what have you realized? Tell me please, maybe I must also realize that, maybe it’s very important for my spiritual life”. She says, “One mataji in the kitchen told me that if a guru wants to reject his disciple he tells him to study sastras” (laughs). And hard as I tried to disprove the authority of the mataji in the kitchen (laughter), I failed to do so because the authority was absolutely indisputable, that was a pramana, “I’ve realized everything!” 

So when some mataji in a kitchen starts telling you something, some esotherical spiritual truth, please don’t take it at face value blindly. Anything might be, there are different matajis, I don’t want to say anything, sometimes matajis also say true things and in the kitchen, too. I’ve heard a lot of such rumors, such things about some miracles and whatnot, I’ve spoken about that. But all that is laukika-sraddha and all this somehow or other is of a social nature, the nature of our small community. 

There is another very interesting example. Yesterday I spoke about this quality of basing one’s faith on miracles, especially on miracles associated with guru. A man told me, he was talking about some guru of his, also very ezotherical. He said, “As soon as I heard the name, the NAME! of my guru, all desire to enjoy my senses vanished into thin air!” I said, “Haven’t you previously heard Srila Prabhupada's name? Didn’t that desire vanished into air then?” In a word, nonsense, such kind of rubbish. 

Another such sign is when people try to receive honor for what they do here. Why do all those strange forms, strange prejudices appear in the society of devotees? That’s exactly because people want to get respect and recognition for what they do. That’s exactly why they start doing something. Like, Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupada sometimes preached to his mind, “O mind, you retreat in solitude so that you chant 64 rounds; why? What for? Yes, so that you get cheap honor from fools same as yourself”. This honesty must be there. Our honesty is the guarantee of our success. Like, sometimes Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupada – that’s also the degree of his honesty – sometimes he deliberately sang out of tune so that people were not attracted by the cheap outer shell, so that people were not misled by external signs, so that people try in their practice, in their attitude towards their practice to go deeper, to go to the essence and not be satisfied by something cheap, by something on the surface. We are all the product of Kali-yuga, the product of a consumer society and now in our consumer society, what are people bought by first of all? By the wrap. We come to spiritual life and what are we trying to find in spiritual life? The wrap, that same wrap. But having found the wrap we can not find what should be there inside. 

Well, I have very little time left. Probably I can end my lecture here now. I’ll simply make a little summary of this part so that tomorrow I can start a new topic, I’d like to dedicate at least one lecture to anartha-nivritti, about what it means to get rid of anarthas, about what kind of anarthas there can be, about how to recognize, how to see them. But even at the very first stage I’ve already given some instruction concerning the cunning nature of our mind. 

To sum ​​up, I’d like to say once again how we should measure our spiritual progress. Every stage indicated in these verses is Krishna’s gift. At each stage Krishna, by His will, seeing our sincerity, in proportion to our sincerity, gives us this gift. At the beginning He, for no reason whatsoever, if we meet some sadhu and if the sadhu somehow or other wants by his mercy that we get mercy, and we feel some preliminary respect for the sadhu, we obtain faith. I didn’t quite correctly answer Vishnu-tattva’s question which he asked after the first lecture. Here of course very important is the desire or mercy of the sadhu. By our actions we must reveal the mercy in the sadhu. 

Like in the story with Giriraja Maharaj, after their first meeting with Srila Prabhupada he was very impressed by those words of Srila Prabhupada, he felt that Srila Prabhupada sees him right through, sees his heart, sees what is happening there, sees all his problems. He became a devotee, he started chanting sixteen rounds, eventually moved to the temple, despite coming from a very wealthy family, the family of hereditary millionaires, and his parents were ready to give him anything just so that he gets back to them. About a year later, Srila Prabhupada arrived in that temple, by that time he had already received initiation by correspondence and he was waiting for Srila Prabhupada. After the lecture, he raised his hand again and asked something and, to his surprise, Srila Prabhupada said, “I remember you”. A year had passed, at some public lecture someone raised a hand and asked a question and for him it was a great surprise when he heard those words of Srila Prabhupada. Srila Prabhupada said, “I remember you. When a year ago you asked that question, I thought, “A good boy!” And I started praying to Krishna: “Let him become a devotee”. Everything that happened to him after that is the result of that prayer; that somehow or other, as I said, our sadhana or our small initial humility is just an attempt to attract Krishna’s attention, everything else is done by Krishna’s mercy. At the first stage we receive mercy in the form of faith. 

Further, our desire to attract Krishna or the desire to prove that we are sincere, must consist in our studying sastra, in our strengthening our faith by listening to bona fide sadhus and properly stydying sastra, precisely in this … As a result of this a new thing will come to us, the desire to do something will come to us. And to do it systematically and we will have the strength to do it systematically, that is, to practice sadhana. We’ll be able suddenly, unexpectedly for ourselves, chant sixteen rounds, sometimes even more, on ekadasi even twenty five, do some heroic deeds, follow the principles. And that’s a gift! The desire to do it is also Krishna’s gift, it doesn’t accidentally come to us, it doesn’t just happen, it’s something that Krishna gives us. 

Further, the next gift that we should receive, the priceless gift, is the understanding of how we can get rid of our shortcomings. At the next stage all the seeds of material desires which have been sleeping in our heart will suddenly, out of nowhere, start germinating. Sometimes people even think that I was better before I started practicing devotional service, I was better and purer; sometimes strange desires come to mind, which were never there before, an internal struggle begins. We need to understand very well what is happening. It’s like when we come into a dirty room which has long been dirty and dust has taken there its constitutional position, has clogged in all the cracks, has rolled into pieces, then generally you might not specifically notice it, dust is there, covering everything, but if you don’t touch that dust it’s not visible. But as soon as we start cleaning up the dust rises and you start thinking, “My God, my God, it wasn’t there before!” Wasn’t it there before? It was. Sometimes a person who chants the mantra also thinks, “I used to be purer before, I used to be better, this wasn’t there before!” Wasn’t it there before? It was, everything was there, we simply start cleaning up and that’s a painful process, a most problematic stage; the most difficult and most painful stage of anartha-nivritti is a gift, because we can pass it only by Krishna’s mercy and by the mercy of the spiritual master. We’ll be able to understand what we should do, how we can purify our heart, how we’ll be able to get rid of these anarthas. How to let them go, how to deal with them, and that’s what I’ll be speaking about a little bit in the next lecture. Although it’s also a gift, we must know what we must do, how we can prove our sincerity to Krishna at this stage. Thank you very much. Maybe we have a few minutes to ask some questions? 

Question: (inaudible) 

Answer: Actually, it’s not as complicated as it might seem. Every society has to be based on rules. If there are no clear rules and laws the society won’t be able to exist properly. In society there must be a law and the law doesn’t contradict mercy, because the law should protect the society against blurring, against some contamination, against deviation, because the tendency to follow the path of least resistance is there in everyone. Therefore a society should be ruled by laws, there is no doubt of this. But at the same time, our religion is a religion of mercy and love is above law, there’s no doubt about it. 

In other words, there is nothing that Krishna couldn’t forgive us, Krishna is ready to forgive everything, He doesn’t pay attention to our shortcomings. But in order to be forgiven in a society where there are laws, sincere repentance is needed. To protect the others against blurring of values ​​and principles there must be effective law. We must understand that it’s us that the laws protect. Because if there are no laws, without having any clear or rigid form, our cunning mind will go an dlook for something lower. The mind is constantly looking for the lowest standards. To tell the mind that this is not to be done there must be laws. Like, for example, in the Indian society there were no divorces in principle and not only in India. In Italy, until recently there were no divorces. And although people also had difficulties in marriage, because there is no marriage without difficulties, somehow or other people lived, because they knew that, in general, there is no way back. But as soon as all this became a standard then immediately the number of divorces began to increase practically indefinitely, because instead of making some effort, one follows the path of the least resistance. At the slightest problem one thinks, “Never mind, I’ll get divorced and will find someone else”, as if one is not going to quarrel or squabble with the other one. We need to understand very well that when we encounter someone, it’s not by chance that Krishna’s sent us that person and we must solve our karmic problem with this person. That is, in a society there must be laws, but nevertheless we must understand that ultimately, if a person truly repents, we can make any exceptions for that person. There is only one condition – sincere repentance. 

Srila Prabhupada also said that the Vedic society was ruined by the over-strictness of the brahmanas when people blindly followed the law and forgot that eventually mercy or love is above any law. We need to understand very well that there is no such sin that Krishna cannot forgive. And He can forgive very quickly. 

There is an interesting Christian story which I recently read. A man came to a holy father, to an elder, and said to him, “I have committed a terrible sin and I decided to repent for three years”. He said, “No, three years is too much, there’s no need for you to repent for three years”. The man said, “How is that that there’s no need to repent for three years?!” “Why repent (audio interrupted) ........... 

…. who, probably, chant a couple of rounds or are just interested. And yet, in any case, if we have this attitude that we are here for one thing – to serve Krishna, not in order to be proud of ourselves, of our merits, of our achievements, of our shoulder-straps, of things like that, but in order to serve; we are here for one purpose only – to serve, then there will be no boundaries between us. And we’ll be one cheerful, happy family that will be doing together what our acharyas want us to do, our masters, Srila Prabhupada. Therefore we have gathered here with you for a family celebration, so that all together we remove all existing problems (audio interrupted) ........ .... 

...... Lord Chaitanya and for a moment He turned black Himself, and they were purified from all their sins. Devotees were horror stricken when they saw this scene. But Lord Chaitanya said, “That’s all, don’t sin anymore, chant the holy name, nothing’s left. Therefore, if we are able to simultaneously create such a society in which people would be protected by the existence of strict laws based on the right priciples because this is necessary in order to protect us against our own mind and at the same time, if we could make it so that love would still prevail in society, then we would be able to create the perfect society. How to do this is more difficult. But we should start with the laws in any case, we should start with the principles and rules. There can always be exceptions if a person is sincere. 

Qestion: (inaudible) 

Answer: This is good, of course, when we have a guru or someone else to talk to us, but the main thing is that he should say the same thing as the guru, because ... That’s precisely why in Vedic philosophy, which most of all emphasizes that God is situated in our heart and that God can speak to us, but it always says that at the beginning one needs a guru who will be the outer personification of the Supersoul and that we must accept his words unconditionally as the words of the Supersoul. Similarly, this same rule applies to senior devotees who are our spiritual master’s assistants and help him in upbringing us. If the isntructions of our inner spiritual master are at variance with the instructions of the external guru, we must forsake the instructions of our inner guru in favour of carrying out the instructions of our external mentors. But at a certain stage when one reaches the level of samadhi, when one’s mind is absolutely peaceful, then one can hear the Supersoul. Sanatana Goswami explains at which stage one doesn’t need an external guru. He says that our mind can be our guru. Isn’t that good news? Our mind can be our guru, but that’s the mind at the level of samadhi. Mind which is absolutely completely undisturbed, mind that can be fully focused on something, mind through the clear prism of which I can see Krishna Himself. Before that I shouldn’t trust, because who knows what guru whispers to me. That might not be a guru, that might be the spirit of my grandmother who has possessed me. In the best case my grandmother’s, in the worst case some other more malevolent entity. 

And the most amazing thing is that these ghosts ... Sometimes people – and this, too, is our desire to be deceived – sometimes people say, “But what they are saying is all true!” My deard devotees, I can not resist quoting Sacinandana Maharaj in this moment, “My dear devotees, any lie is 99% correct, that’s exactly why it’s a lie. If all of it was incorrect, it would’ve been very easy to recognize it. Therefore all these things that someone wispers to us can be 99% correct but there will be 1%, which will poison all the rest of the 99%, there will be a fly in the ointment that will poison it all. Therefore it’s better to go safely, there’s a safe path, there are Srila Prabhupada’s books, there are Srila Prabhupada’s instructions, there are our spiritual master’s instructions which are non-different from what he gives and there is, in a harmonious and balanced manner, everything that we know, there is the experience of those who have walked the spiritual path, why not take them? 

Question: (inaudible) 

Answer: Who are the laymen in the spiritual world? This is my innovation, my contribution to our sampradaya (laughs), but not quite. Because it is said that there is a salokya-mukti, sarupya-mukti, saarsti-mukti, samipya-mukti – there are 4 types of Vaishnava mukti which are accepted by Vaisnavas in order to serve Krishna: they can be on the same planet with Krishna, they can have the same form as Krishna, they can enjoy the same benefits as Krishna or opulences, or be near Krishna. But this is accepted by Vaisnavas reluctantly, because that is not a binding guarantee that they will serve. Mukti is mukti and mukti means that one lives on the planet of the spiritual world. Let’s assume that one’s not a Vaishnava, but for some reason or other, by virtue of practicing misra-bhakti, not pure bhakti but misra-bhakti, one hasn’t understood the importance of the relationship with God and the primacy of the relationship with God, the fact that this is the most important thing and the importance of love, and one eventually desired liberation. One has obtained liberation and has found oneself in the spiritual world, one lives there and it’s nice there, basically one’s very pious, one follows all the rules of the spiritual world, but one has no manifest, no clear love of Krishna and one doesn’t serve Krishna, one doesn’t have this passion to serve Krishna, to do something for Krishna. And generally, one’s concerned about oneself to a certain extent, one doesn’t interfere with others, one is quite a harmless creature, one has four hands if he has sarupya-mukti. One lives there somewhere somehow, but one doesn’t have bhakti. Krishna Himself says in “Srimad-Bhagavatam” (5.6.18): muktim dadati karhicit sma na bhakti-yogam – that I easily give mukti, but bhakti-yoga that’s more difficult. Because Krishna knows that one should be absolutely pure in order to get bhakti and He is in no hurry to give bhakti. But mukti He can give easily. 

Question: (inaudible) 

Answer: Between the devotees? ... Bhakti is the science of relationships. Our acaryas ... You wont’ find this in any other philosophy, they’ve classified the entire philosophy into sambandha, abhidheya and prayojana and it all starts with sambandha, with the understanding of relationships, with the understanding of what relationships connect me with Krishna, what kind of relationships connect me to the world, what relationships connect me with other living beings. I have to properly train myself here in establishing my relationship. If I haven’t been able to establish my relationships, how am I to become a paramahamsa? Paramahamsa means one who doesn’t envy. What destroys relationships between people? Envy. How can I get rid of envy, if I don’t have relationships with other people? Actually, society has a beneficial effect on people just because there are relationships and in the context of those relationships I can see my envy. If I’ve decided to become a paramahamsa and I go somewhere into a cave to chant mantra ... Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur Prabhupada says that this is sukarera-vista, pigs’ excrements. You feed your mind on a false sense of honor that you want to get. Whereas actually in the context of relationships I’ll be able to more easily get rid of all these problems and especially important in this aspect are the relationships with our equals. Why do we speak of friendship and why do we emphasize that friendship is necessary – because in the relationship with equals one can easily see all his problems – jealousy, envy – which impede him, including his relationship with Krishna. Because in my relationships with those above me it’s easy to pretend to be nice. Right? We come and somehow naturally we are all humility. In the relationship with our youngers it’s easy to play the role of a righteous Vaishnava because we understand that if we are playing this role properly, we’ll get something from them, some dividends. In the relationships with our equals – that’s where it all begins, here all masks are taken off. Therefore if we learn in our relationship with our equals to put aside our false ego, which prevents us from establishing relationships; and only one thing prevents us from establishing relationships, false ego and pride; if we learn to put it aside, take our false ego off and live in the devotees society like simple souls, like humble Vaishnavas, like those who want to achieve the highest goal, the highest ideal, those who go in that direction and for that sake work in conjunction with the others. Srila Prabhupada said a very important thing. These were practically the last words he said addressed to us “Your love for me will be proven by the way you can cooperate with each other”. Cooperation means friendship. We cooperate with each other, being friends, striving to achieve the common goal, doing something for the sake of achieving the common goal. But people have misheard it a little bit and instead heard, “Your love for me will be proven by the way you can compete with each other”. And they began to compete. This is envy. Therefore we must become friends and not wait until we become paramahamsas; otherwise our society will turn into who knows what, into a society of people anticipating paramahamsa-izm meanwhile exhibiting rudeness. See you tomorrow. Srila Prabhupada ki! Jaya!