TLC – The Teachings of Lord Caitanya—Part 08 VIHE

Giriraj Swami: 

jaya jaya śrī-caitanya jaya nityānanda jayādvaita-candra jaya gaura-bhakta-vṛnda (3)

Srila Prabhupada ki. . . jaya!

Yesterday, we discussed three classifications of devotees on the basis of attachment and love for Krishna. And we discussed how association of a pure devotee is effective. Now one point that we have discussed before but which we can mention again is that when the uttama-adhikārī has to preach or wants to preach, he has to come to the madhyam platform. For example, in the Upadeśāmṛta, Rupa Gosvami says that one should associate with and faithfully serve the pure devotee who is completely free from the propensity to criticize others. The uttama-adhikārī does not criticize others because he sees everyone in relationship with Krishna, but when he preaches, he has to criticize.

Once when I went to Madras, I found that practically the whole city was full of impersonalists, and they did not like the fact that I was preaching against impersonalism and demigod worship. And they often told me that I should not criticize, I should only speak positively about what we are doing, but I should not criticize what others are doing. And finally, they compared us unfavorably to the Gaudiya math there. They said that the Gaudiya Math there has a very nice celebration of Krishna Janmashtami, and they are very well accepted by people there, but they never criticized. So why should you criticize?

I wrote Srila Prabhupada, and Srila Prabhupada wrote back that, “The fact is that I am the only person in India who is openly criticizing not only impersonalism and demigod worship but anything that falls short of complete surrender to Krishna. And we must declare boldly that unless people surrender to Krishna as Supreme Personality of Godhead, they can never have any peace or happiness.” He said, “My Guru Maharaja never compromised. Similarly, I shall never compromise, and neither should any of my disciples compromise.”

So sometimes by reading the books, one may not actually be able to understand the activities of a pure devotee, but actually in the case of Srila Prabhupada we saw that he criticized not only non-devotees, but he even criticized his own disciples and even his godbrothers, but for the sake of preaching he did it.

In Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Krishnadasa Kaviraja Gosvami mentions that Raghunatha Bhatta Gosvami was satisfied just to know that someone was serving Krishna, and he would not entertain any criticism of any Vaishnava or any person. If he saw that the person was serving Krishna, that was enough; he didn’t want to discuss further. But in the purport Srila Prabhupada mentions that even the mahā-bhāgavata when he preaches, he acts on the intermediate platform, and he sees faults and he finds faults and he criticizes. But when he criticizes, he only does so for the sake of the people that they may give up false attachments to karma or jnana or yoga or anything else and surrender fully to Krishna and serve Him. There is no malice or envy or offense.

Devotee: So does that mean that realization in Krishna consciousness that he sort of voluntarily reduces it, or is it just that he is just voluntarily acting? Is he just sort of putting it off as a madhyamādhikārī?

Giriraj Swami: There is one similarity between the madhyamādhikārī and the uttama-adhikārī. And that they see that everyone is suffering from separation from Krishna. Now the uttama-adhikārī, he is also suffering in the mood of separation from Krishna and the madhyamādhikārī sees that conditioned souls are suffering in the material world in separation from Krishna. And both the uttama-adhikārī and the madhyamādhikārī want to bring people to Krishna. In one case, he thinks that the others are serving Krishna better than me. So they should be given the chance to serve Krishna directly. Srila Prabhupada says that even Srimati Radharani as a mahā-bhāgavata, She sees that everyone is serving Krishna better than Her, and so She wants to arrange for them to be with Krishna. So the madhyamādhikārī also wants to bring others to Krishna, you could say for the sake of. . .

Devotee: Didn’t you say that uttama-adhikārī sees everyone is serving Krishna already?

Giriraj Swami: Yeah, so that’s why if he is going to remain on the uttamā platform, he can’t preach. So in order to preach, he has to come to the madhyam platform, which he does for the sake of the service of the Lord by the, you could say, by the will of the Lord.

Devotee: So madhyamādhikārī or uttama-adhikārī sees everyone Krishna conscious, so how then can he possibly come down and preach to bring Krishna consciousness? What realization is it to really see everybody is already serving Krishna? How is he seeing that?

Giriraj Swami: The reason why uttama-adhikārī is so special is that he sees the presence of Krishna everywhere, and he sees the energy of Krishna is also not different from Krishna, and the people who are serving the energy of Krishna are also serving Krishna. He doesn’t distinguish between direct service and indirect service. He can also see that ultimately everyone is serving Krishna, but some are serving directly, and some are serving indirectly. Like in the prison, the prisoners are also serving the nation, they go and break rocks and dig roads. They are also serving the nation, but they are serving by force whereas the free citizens are serving voluntarily. So the uttama-adhikārī because he sees that everyone is serving, he doesn’t distinguish between directly and indirectly, but the madhyamādhikārī distinguishes.

Now here because the uttama-adhikārī is also surrendered to Krishna, he will accept the role of madhyamādhikārī for the sake of Krishna’s service and yoga-māyā will help him to act as madhyamādhikārī. Yoga-māyā is very influential and everyone including Krishna comes under the influence of yoga-māyā.

When Krishna is in Vrindavan, by the influence of yoga-māyā, He doesn’t think that He is God. When mother Yasoda picks up the stick to punish Krishna and Krishna becomes afraid and tears come to His eyes and He starts to run and hide, He is not pretending, He is actually feeling afraid by the influence of yoga-māyā. Generally, Krishna is not aware of the fact that He is God when He is in Vrindavan. Only if some demon comes or some threat or some calamity comes to the devotees, then yoga-māyā allows Him to know that He is God because if He didn’t know that He was God then He would never be able to swallow the forest fire, He would never be able to lift Govardhana hill, He would never be able to do so many things. So temporarily she allows Him to remember that He is God so that He can give protection to His devotees and then again He forgets.

If we see the associates of Lord Chaitanya like Rupa Gosvami and Sanatana Gosvami, they are eternally liberated souls, but by the influence of yoga-māyā they don’t think that they are liberated souls. They think that they are conditioned souls, who have been saved by the mercy of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and the Vaishnavas.

So when they describe themselves as being most fallen and having been saved from the deep well of material existence by the mercy of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and others, they are also not pretending that at the time they are not thinking that I’m so and so in Krishna’s pastimes, I’m ever liberated. They’re not thinking like that. So such things are accomplished by the agency of yoga-māyā.

Devotee: Okay I can understand that but then how could uttama-adhikārī like possibly think that let’s say people on 42nd street in Times Square in New York city are serving Krishna? how could it be because you see everybody in Krishna directly or indirectly but they’re going to hell and so how can you think that they are properly engaged, probably even more or less?

Giriraj Swami: Do you mean to say devotees never go to hell? There are no servants of Krishna in hell?

Devotee: I don’t know what I can imagine there.

Giriraj Swami: Yes, the devotees of the Lord, the servants of the Lord can go anywhere and everywhere and they do so. So we cannot say that the uttama-adhikārī cannot see that devotional service is going on in hell. This is also as good as hell. So if it can go on here, then it can go on there.

Devotee: Right but what I mean is that some for devotees no problem, they can go anywhere right, but he says there are other devotees [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: Okay, I will tell one story which includes Srila Prabhupada’s own statements. We were in Indore in Madhya Pradesh with Srila Prabhupada, and every day many Hindus used to come and argue with him. One day he actually complained that they come with their own ideas to the guru, and then they check the guru to what extent he agrees with their existing ideas, and if he agrees with them, then he is very good, and if he doesn’t agree, then they don’t like it. So one person came and Srila Prabhupada started criticizing maybe Vivekananda or anyone, and then the man started to challenge Srila Prabhupada that, “You should not criticize anyone. The saintly person should not criticize. They should see everyone equally,” and then he quoted the verse, paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśinaḥ that, “He [pandita] sees a dog, a cow, an elephant, a brahman, a dog eater, all the same.” Then Srila Prabhupada said, “I’m not on that platform.” He said, “I’m not on that platform. How is it that someone sees a brahman and a dog the same? How does someone take birth as a brahman? And how does someone take birth as a dog? If he performs pious activities, he can take birth as a brahman, and if he performs sinful activities, he can take birth as a dog. So for him to see the brahman and the dog equally means that he makes no distinction between pious activities and sinful activities. He sees them all the same, but I’m not on that platform! I see that, ‘Oh, you are committing sinful activities, you should stop.’”

So then the man said—there were different turns in the conversation—but the man said that because Prabhupada kept quoting the previous acharyas, and then the man challenged that, “You are just quoting the previous acharyas, what is your contribution?” And Prabhupada said, “No contribution. I only quote the previous acharyas. I have no contribution.” Then again, the discussion continued and in the end, Srila Prabhupada said that he has made Krishna consciousness available to persons all over the world which no one has ever done before, and he said that is his contribution.

This man was saying that every acharya should make some contribution beyond what the previous acharya did. So he said, “This is my contribution and this is my sama-darśinaḥ, and I see that they’re all eligible to serve Krishna.” But if we understand some of the verses of the Gītā properly, we’ll see that they apply to uttama-adhikārīs; they make no distinction between a brahman and a dog.

Devotee: [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: Yes, that’s true. Like Srila Prabhupada said about the scientists that when you criticize the scientist he may not accept, but the innocent people who may be misled by the materialistic scientists, they will hear and they will benefit. Just like you are sitting next to someone and you call him a thief. So he may not accept that he is a thief, but all the innocent people will be warned that you have said that he is a thief, and they’ll be careful that is.

Devotee: [Unintelligible] In this whole area of criticism, it’s not considered offense because there is no envy involved. I’ll give you the example of Rupa Gosvami’s seemingly remarkable [Unintelligible] 

Giriraj Swami: We should be very careful because except for uttama-adhikārī, all others are prone to envy. There can be some trace, anyway that’s a whole other topic, but basically, we should follow the example of the tortoise as given by Krishna in the Gītā that he only extends his limbs when there is a need, otherwise he keeps them inside. So we also should not extend ourselves or our criticism unless required, but in the immature stage we are prone to see faults in Vaishnavas with no benefit to the Vaishnavas, and sometimes the faults are imagined.

I’ll give another example. Tamala Krishna Goswami was telling me about his editor today that sometimes when his editor would be correcting his manuscripts, there would be some quote from Srila Prabhupada but he would miss the fact that the quote was from Srila Prabhupada, and he thought that it was Tamal Krishna Goswami. And then he would take out his red pen and start making all sorts of corrections. Then at the end of the quote, he’d realize that actually it was a quote from Srila Prabhupada, and it wasn’t a subject for him to edit and correct.

So we should be careful, in other words, we should be careful. Unless we are sure that there is some deviation in terms of scripture or Vaishnava etiquette, we shouldn’t criticize. You see, if the author asks the editor to edit, then there is no fault on the part of the editor because he has been asked to edit for the sake of service.

Like Umapati Swami told a funny story also that in the beginning, Srila Prabhupada asked him to edit his letters maybe or whatever he had written. So there was a typed page and Srila Prabhupada said, “Sri Sri Radha-Krishna,” and one ‘Sri’ was at the end of one line and the other ‘Sri’ was at the beginning of the next line. So he thought that maybe the typist made some mistake because he had never heard ‘Sri Sri Radha-Krishna’; he had only heard ‘Sri Radha-Krishna.’ So he thought maybe when the typist was typing, he typed ‘Sri’ and then inadvertently typed ‘Sri’ again. So he went to Srila Prabhupada and said, “Srila Prabhupada, it is written here ‘Sri Sri Radha-Krishna,’ but should it not be ‘Sri Radha-Krishna?’” And Srila Prabhupada said, “I have asked you to make corrections in your language.” And then even after that he commented to the other devotees, “He is trying to correct me in my own language.”

So we should know when to criticize or correct and when not to, apart from how. That’s another thing in austerity of speech mentioned in Bhagavad-gītā Lord Krishna says, that that one should only speak things that are pleasing to others and which are beneficial to others and in the purport Srila Prabhupada mentions that if one is in the position of instructor, he can criticize the student or he can correct the student, but he shouldn’t do the same with persons who are not his students. So it depends on our relationship or our service whether we correct someone or chastise someone or not, but in the case of parent and child, or teacher-student, guru and disciple, they have to. Srila Prabhupada said it’s the duty of the spiritual master to find fault with the disciples, and he quoted Chankya Pandita that one should not flatter a student or a son because they’ll become spoiled, but one should point out the faults so that he can improve. So I noticed in the way that Srila Prabhupada would deal with people personally. In the lecture he could say anything on the basis of philosophy, but in personal dealings, he was very friendly.

I was speaking about Dr. Misra who had accommodated Srila Prabhupada in the early days in New York city. He said that when it came to philosophy, we would argue like anything. He said one time we were in the back of the car and he started speaking Mayavadi nonsense and I couldn’t control myself. I just couldn’t tolerate it, but we were very good friends. And Srila Prabhupada used to cook for him when he was sick, and by Prabhupada’s cooking he recovered. So we should be able to understand the difference between the arena of philosophy and the arena of personal relationship. Of course, we should not associate intimately with non-devotees or something else, but still one should deal nicely with someone even if in terms of philosophy when they disagree.

Srila Prabhupada gave the example of lawyers that in the court they may argue very vehemently, but when they’re outside of the courtroom they are friends, and they have dinner together, and they talk together and joke together. The fact that they were arguing on the basis of law in the courtroom doesn’t mean that they can’t be friends outside of the courtroom.

So madhyamādhikārī is very expert in how to deal. Actually, Jiva Gosvami says that kaniṣṭhādhikārīs are more or less useless for practical purposes because they don’t know how to deal with people. They have some disagreement; they get upset or they get excited; they can’t. . . they don’t know how to deal.

Devotee: [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: Yes, yes. So now here’s the point and this is why the madhyamādhikārī distinguishes between innocent persons and envious persons. Purna Chandra Prabhu asks, “What is the definition of an innocent person?” So part of the definition is that he is not envious and the other part of the definition is that he is receptive, he is open. And therefore the madhyamādhikārī should only preach to an innocent person apart from subordinate devotees, and he should neglect the envious and Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura says that the neglect of the envious by the madhyamādhikārī Vaishnava does not show lack of mercy, but it is the best way to show mercy to them because if we go to preach to them, they will not like it and they’ll most likely become more hostile. So in order to check the feelings of hostility on both sides, the preacher should not approach him. But he says, Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati says that he can think of how to bring benefit to the envious person like Prahlada Maharaja. He was thinking how to deliver the fools and rascals. So that is appropriate for the madhyamādhikārī, to think of giving mercy to every living entity but not necessarily in the way of directly going and preaching to him but somehow rather engaging him, knowingly or unknowingly, engaging him.

Like when we have big festivals, colorful festivals, lots of nice kirtan and nice prasādam. Anyone can participate, even people who might react if we approach them directly to preach, they appreciate. And we see practically, maybe, even with our parents. Like our parents may not be devotees; they may not be innocent even. And if we try to preach to them, they may not like it, they may get worse. I know from personal experience because I don’t know how but somehow or other we got on the subject of the astronauts going to the moon. And when my father heard that we didn’t believe that they went to the moon, he couldn’t believe it. I mean he really. . . I mean, I could see he was just like there was no hope of convincing him, but to the contrary he was just thinking that we are just really crazy fellows. So the offense of preaching to the faithless is so somewhat related because what is the definition of faithful and faithless. Faithful means he has to have faith in the scripture. So unless the person has faith in the scripture, you cannot preach on the basis of what the scripture says. You can only preach to create faith in the scripture in the person, which is done by discussing the four defects and explaining how we cannot have perfect knowledge because we have four defects. So if we want perfect knowledge, we have to go to perfect authority like that. But otherwise if we say that by chanting the holy name, you become free from more sinful reactions then you can commit sins, he won’t accept it because he doesn’t have faith in the scriptures. So that’s an offense because he’ll just disbelieve what you are saying. So either we have to preach on the basis of logic and argument to convince them to accept the scriptures, then when they have faith in the scriptures then we can say anything according to what they are able to understand.

Because in one conversation, Srila Prabhupada was speaking to one professor in Sweden. He was talking about the holy name. We can always request people to chant Hare Krishna, but then one disciple in the room started to preach about the glories of chanting but the professor hadn’t accepted the authority of scripture, and Srila Prabhupada stopped the disciple, he said this is an offense. So madhyamādhikārī is an expert. He should be expert in order to really preach means to know how to deal with people, how to distinguish between different types of persons and how to deal with them appropriately. This is clearly explained in the two verses that we didn’t get to discuss too much yesterday about Lord Chaitanya’s discussions with Satyaraja khan about how to recognize the Vaishnava but in the description of the madhyamādhikārī, Srila Prabhupada explains that the madhyamādhikārī can clearly distinguish between a pure devotee and a mixed devotee, and he will only associate intimately with pure devotees; he won’t associate intimately with mixed devotees. So kaniṣṭhādhikārīs can’t distinguish. So they have to be respectful to everyone. Their position is difficult, their position is difficult because unless one can really distinguish between a pure devotee, a mixed devotee, a pretender, a Mayavadi, an atheist, and so on, they can make mistakes.

Now, we will be able to discuss everything in the book but we should read and know what’s in the book at least what’s in the verses. So now we have to come to the point about non-devotees. Now in Upadeśāmṛta, Rupa Gosvami has mentioned six exchanges of love shared among devotees, and in the purport Srila Prabhupada quotes Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati that the other side of the injunction is that one should not engage in such reciprocations with non-devotees. So there are six reciprocations, but they will be applied differently according to the status of the devotee that we are dealing with. So we have to know what our own status is and what the other devotee status is, then we can deal in the appropriate way. We also have to be able to distinguish between a devotee and a non-devotee, or not even a non-devotee but a person who we should not associate with intimately.

So we’ll come jump over to Text Eighty-six just for a moment and then we’ll go to Eighty-seven. What I want to point out about Text Eighty-six is that by the association of devotees śraddhā ratir bhaktir anukramiṣyati (last line)—that sraddha which means faith, rati which means attraction or bhāva, and bhakti which here means love or prema—they follow one after the other by chanting and hearing the glories of the Lord in the association of pure devotees. In other words, the association of pure devotees is not for the benefit of beginning devotees only but it’s for the benefit of all types of devotees, and by such association one achieves one after the other sādhana-bhakti, bhāva-bhakti, and prema-bhakti.

Now we come to the important verse Text Eighty-seven: (Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya 22.87)

Asat-saṅga-tyāga, — ei vaiṣṇava-ācāra, a Vaishnava should avoid the association of ordinary people. Now who is a Vaishnava? Ordinary ‘strī-saṅgī’ eka asādhu, here is one type of non-devotee or unsaintly person, ‘kṛṣṇābhakta’ āra and those who are not devotees of Lord Krishna, are another. So there are two categories; one may be devotee but attached to women and sense gratification, and the other is not a devotee at all.

So Srila Prabhupada has explained strī-saṅgī’ as someone who associates with women for the purpose of sense gratification. Of course he should not associate with any woman except his wife, but even with his wife he should only associate according to religious principles, but if he doesn’t follow the religious principles governing the association of husband and wife then he comes in the same category of strī-saṅgī’, and we should not associate with him intimately.

Then kṛṣṇābhakta’—generally we know who is a devotee and so we know who is not a devotee, but still Bhaktivinoda Thakura has given three categories of non-devotees; one is the Mayavadi, another is the pretender- the pretender is someone who dresses like a Vaishnava and acts like a Vaishnava for the sake of earning a living, for the sake of getting some material benefit, and then the atheist. So we should not associate intimately with any of them, and Bhaktivinoda Thakura further says that if we avoid intimate association with some such non-devotees who may be accepted as devotees by other persons, and if the other persons criticize us for not accepting the non-devotees, then we should reject the association of them also.

Just like there are many Hindus who cannot distinguish between a devotee and a non-devotee and they may have sentimental attachment to non-devotees, who are Bhagavat reciters or whatever, and if we don’t want to associate intimately with such persons, they criticize us that we are fanatical, we are closed-minded, or we are sectarian or whatever. We should also not associate intimately with them—it means the people that are criticizing us for not associating with non-devotees. So this is very subtle, this is very subtle, and again unless one has some spiritual maturity, he won’t be able to distinguish clearly but all the instructions that we are reading here in Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta or in Upadeśāmṛta about association are meant for madhyamādhikārīs. They’re meant for madhyamādhikārīs or to bring people to the platform of madhyamādhikārīs to be able to make distinctions. Otherwise we get in trouble unless we are in the association of advanced devotees who can guide us in practical. . .

Like when we first came to Bombay, just to show you, how subtle association is and how conservative Srila Prabhupada was about it. There were no accommodations for the devotees. So we very quickly built some tents, erected some tents. And at Hare Krishna land in Juhu, there are six pucca buildings and three outhouses at the back, and the outhouses did not have attached toilets. So there were two common toilets at the back. So Srila Prabhupada said that we should not use the same toilets as the karmis, but he had us dig holes in the ground and put up chātāi walls that means like straw, something like straw walls and go there. He didn’t even want us to pass stool in the same place as them. This is asat saṅga tyāga.

Then we had no facility, and the tenants had at least proper buildings, they had refrigerators, they had cold water, some of them. . . and we had nothing. So some of the devotees got in the habit of calling on the tenants asking for some cold water, maybe sitting down with them and talking for some minutes, and when Srila Prabhupada heard, he became very upset, and he said they should not do that, and actually the result was very bad for the tenants and the devotees because the relationship deteriorated. They would get into mundane talks and the whole situation deteriorated. So we have to be careful, we can go if they are innocent, we can go and preach, but we should not mingle intimately with them.

One more example which also shows how expert Srila Prabhupada was on both levels of knowing how not to avoid intimately with a person and at the same time knowing how to encourage a person. But we had some very wealthy, enthusiastic, favorable members in Pune and they had some land in Panchgani Mahabaleshwar outside Bombay which is a hill station and a good place especially in the hot season.

So they were going to give us, they said they were going to give us, they had one house, a nice bungalow and fifty acres of land. So we went to Pune and met the family there, then we joined them and drove to Panchgani Mahabaleshwar and they brought us to the house, and I think the older brother and his wife were already in the house, and they had prepared prasāda. So Srila Prabhupada was very charming as usual, and he was saying that, “Oh this is the best prasādam I’ve ever had. I’ve eaten so much; I never eat so much. Isn’t it true? I only usually eat one or two chapatis but today so many chapatis, it was so delicious,” so they were so happy. Then they went out, I don’t know what they went out for in the afternoon, and so Prabhupada took some rest, and he came out of the room into the drawing room, sitting room. He just sat down, without any announcement or anything, he said, “Let’s discuss Bhagavad-gītā.” Devotees who were there came, and the older brother, the second brother had gone out, only the younger brother was there who was a follower of Rajnish. So he came and there was some discussion and [[Unintelligible] the others. Then the next morning at four o’clock Srila Prabhupada had already been up for some time and was translating in the next room. It was a big house so there were many bedrooms. So we were in the room next to Prabhupada’s. So he called for the servant at about four o’clock, and actually the servant and all of us were asleep. So the servant just got up and somehow did something and went in. Then Srila Prabhupada was very grave and silent. And he said, “Do you hear that?” and the servant was listening. “Do you hear that sound from the next room? What is that?” And the servant said, “Srila Prabhupada, that’s snoring.” Srila Prabhupada said, “I know it’s snoring, it’s four o’clock in the morning, wake them up. They should not be sleeping now.” Then he said, “Wake them up, they should take bath, and then they should come in.” Then we came in and Srila Prabhupada said, “We must leave this place immediately.” He said, “Although it was agreed that we would stay for three days, but if we stay here for one more day, we’ll all be finished.” He said, “We’ve only spent one night here, and we are already sleeping late in the morning,” and then he spoke about the meal because although the prasāda was very good, Punjabi khana, but it was served on, well in America we say lazy-susan, I don’t know in other places, it’s a disc that rotates and there are different containers with the dhal, different sabjis, pakoras, and chutney, and everything was there.

And, nobody was serving, so everyone would sit at the table, and when somebody wanted more of something, he’d turn the lazy-susan, and there would be serving spoons, you’d take but it wasn’t clean. And Srila Prabhupada pointed that out. He said that we are eating from the same bowls and the same utensils as them and basically, he felt that we had already fallen down, just by the fact that we were sleeping at four o’clock in the morning. He thought we had already fallen down, and the reason was from intimate association with the family. So then we said, “How will we explain it because we already said that you would stay for three days.” He said, “Well, you can use the fleet of my health that my digestion is not good, and I got diarrhea, and I have to go back to Bombay.” So he said, “Immediately pack and get ready.” So we packed and got ready and by the time before the family had awoken, all the bags were packed and we were ready to go just waiting for them to get up. So they got up. Srila Prabhupada himself explained that he was not feeling well so much, so he wanted to go back to Bombay, and then we left.

Then two or three days later the older brother came to Bombay or maybe both of the first and the second, but again we didn’t really know how to deal because of the way Prabhupada had spoken about them and left. But Srila Prabhupada said, “Oh, you must immediately make prasāda for them, and we must take very good care of them. They’re very important people; they’re good friends of ours.” And he was very warm and very gracious with them. So this is an expert. In other words, he wanted to encourage them he wanted to engage them, but at the same time he didn’t want us to be affected by too much intimate association with them, so you have to learn how to do that, how to keep the proper relationship, how to keep the proper distance and at the same time encourage them.

The last homework assignment which was to outline or summarize the reading and the discussion will be handed in. It’s not too late. And then we’ll have the same type of assignment over the weekend. Yeah, this is actually to help us to review and understand what we’ve read and discussed so that we are prepared, and then Monday we can have an exam. We missed. . . We could have Saturday as curriculum day, we could have [exam] on Sunday. I keep thinking maybe I’ll combine two, but the subjects are not getting combined; each subject is taking one class. Yeah, the test will help you prepare, I mean, the homework will help you to prepare for the exam.