NOI – Nectar of Instruction—Part 05

Giriraj Swami: Yesterday, we read Text Three. Utsāhān niścayād dhairyāt. What is utsāhān? Yes, enthusiasm. Enthusiasm for what? Taking prasāda. Enthusiasm for what? Yes, bhakti, for devotional service. And what is the definition of bhakti or uttamā-bhakti? Svarūpa-lakṣaṇa—to render continuous favorable service to Krishna. And?

Devotee: [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: Yeah, it should not be covered by karma, jnana, laziness, or anything else. And?

Devotee: [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ, one should have no other desire. ānukūlyena means favorable to Krishna’s pleasure.

Now Kamsa, Jarasandha, Shishupal, Dantavakra, and eighteen other demons came to fight with Krishna to kill Him, and Krishna actually took pleasure in fighting with them. Can we say that they were engaged in pure devotional service or bhakti? Why?

Devotee: Because their motivation was not true to please Krishna although Krishna is Absolute, but in their motivation they didn’t [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: Yes, their mood was not favorable. Their mood was hostile. Because Krishna is Absolute, He has no material body, He makes no distinction between friends and enemies. We distinguish because we are not complete, we are not Absolute, we are not perfect. So, we feel that we have something to lose in this world or something to gain in this world. So, if someone helps us to gain what we want, we consider them friends, and if someone forces us to lose something, we consider them to be enemies. But Krishna is Absolute. He is perfect and complete. He has nothing to gain or lose. So even the demons who came to fight with Krishna gave pleasure to Krishna, but the demons cannot be said to be engaged in ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānu-śīlanaṁ because their mood was not favorable, their mood was actually hostile.

Srila Prabhupada says that demons like Kamsa are also Krishna conscious but not favorably. Like you might know, when Srila Prabhupada first went to New York, the devotees became enamored by one Mr. Price, and Mr. Price cheated the devotees. He took all the money that the devotees had accumulated or that Srila Prabhupada had gotten and gave it to Mr. Price in the hopes that Mr. Price would give them some building which he never did. So, Srila Prabhupada had warned the devotees not to make any payment without a proper contract, but they were so bewildered by his sophisticated word jugglery that they paid him all the money they had without any agreement. So, in the end Srila Prabhupada had to come personally from San Francisco to New York to try to solve the matter. In the midst of the difficulties with Mr. Price, Mr. Price phoned, and Srila Prabhupada answered the phone. It was the beginning days of ISKCON. Srila Prabhupada answered the phone and in a very sweet and charming way Srila Prabhupada said, “Oh Mr. Price, I’m always thinking of you.” And after the phone call the devotees asked Prabhupada, “Is it true that you are always thinking of Mr. Price?” And Srila Prabhupada said, “Yes, like Kamsa was always thinking of Krishna.” So, it is Krishna consciousness, but it is not favorable so it is not bhakti because bhakti must be favorable.

Now we also find in the Tenth Canto that Mother Yasoda was feeding baby Krishna her breast milk, and some milk on the fire began to boil over. She set aside baby Krishna to tend to the milk on the fire, but baby Krishna was not satisfied drinking her breast milk yet. He became very upset when she set Him aside and went to tend to the milk on the fire, and He became very frustrated and angry, and He began to cry and so many things. So Mother Yasoda. . . Because ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānu-śīlanaṁ, one should serve Krishna favorably as Krishna wants, but she wasn’t serving Krishna as He wanted. In fact, she considered the milk on the fire to be more important than Krishna. She paid more attention to the milk on the fire than to Krishna. So can we say that she did bhakti?

Devotee: Yes, because the milk was meant for Krishna only.

Giriraj Swami: Yes, very good. The milk was meant for the service of Krishna and kṛṣṇānu-śīlanaṁ. Krishna doesn’t mean Krishna in isolation. Krishna includes Krishna’s form, various forms, qualities, and paraphernalia which is meant for the service of Krishna. So the milk was meant for the service of Krishna. And as we discussed yesterday that kṛṣṇa-līlā is nara-līlā—that means Mother Yasoda is not thinking that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. She thinks that He is her baby, and she didn’t see any wrong in setting Him aside because she wanted to take care of the milk which was meant for the service of Krishna.

So in the service of Mother Yasoda or as we discussed yesterday, in the service of Swarupa Damodar, there can only be pleasure for the Lord but sometimes the Lord, who’s also in the mood of being a human being, part of the mood of human being, a little baby, He acts like a baby but actually He is always pleased by Mother Yasoda just like Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is always pleased by Swarupa Damodar. And Jiva Gosvami reveals some more facts about the incident that the milk wanted to serve Krishna, and the milk thought that, If Krishna becomes satisfied just by drinking Mother Yasoda’s breast milk, then I won’t have the chance to serve Krishna. So he thought if he boils over, then Mother Yasoda will be forced to set down Krishna and come and save him, save the milk. We should not distinguish between Krishna and things related to Krishna. So kṛṣṇa-anuśīlanam means service to Krishna and things related to Krishna. And Krishna is more pleased when we take care of the things related to Him than when we take care of Him directly.

Therefore Lord Shiva tells Parvati: Ārādhanānāṁ sarveṣāṁ viṣṇor ārādhanaṁ param. “Of all types of worship, the worship of Krishna is the highest.” Tasmāt parataraṁ devi tadīyānāṁ samarcanam. “But even higher than the worship of Krishna is the worship of things related to Krishna.” [Padma Purāṇa]

Lord Chaitanya acted as the ideal sannyasi, and He was strict. So, although Maharaja Pratāparudra was a great devotee of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Lord Chaitanya, to set the example, refused to meet the king because kings are supposed to be involved with wealth and women. And saṅga-tyāgat, we read yesterday, saṅga-tyāgat—one should avoid the association of materialistic people. So, Lord Chaitanya set the example, and He refused to meet the king. But the king was such a great devotee, he was in the mood to give up his kingdom, give up his life if he could not get Mahaprabhu’s darshan. And so many devotees of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu even Nityananda Prabhu Himself, Raya Ramananda, Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya, they all spoke on behalf of the king, but Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was firm not to meet the king. So, to pacify the king or to save the king’s life, they gave the king some outer garment of the Lord, some cloth, and the king immediately began to worship it as if the cloth was Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. And when Lord Chaitanya heard the news, He was very satisfied that the king has understood nicely. He has done nicely, and He quoted the same verse—tadīyānāṁ samarcanam—that the worship of things related to the Lord is even better than the worship of the Lord directly, and so the worship of the devotee also pleases Krishna more than the worship of Krishna Himself.

So, Krishna, kṛṣṇānu-śīlanaṁ means Krishna, His expansions and incarnations and pure devotees and paraphernalia—all. Then anu-śīlanaṁ means cultivation and anu especially means continuous cultivation without any interruption. Srila Prabhupada in the purport says, ‘unalloyed devotional service.’ That means. . . what is an alloy? A mixture. Like when Srila Prabhupada first came to Boston, he saw a sign board on the side of a building, Unalloyed steel. So Srila Prabhupada commented that, “They’re advertising Unalloyed steel and we are advertising Unalloyed devotional service.” So steel is pure, an alloy to steel means that the steel is mixed with some inferior metals to make the price less for people. So pure devotional service is unalloyed with any inferior process like karma, jnana, or yoga. So that is pure devotional service. So because pure devotional service is not mixed with anything else, it must be continuous because there is nothing else but devotional service. And anu-śīlanaṁ means what? We mentioned it yesterday, I’ll say it again.

It means to do positive activities and to refrain from negative activities. Like a positive activity is to chant the holy name. So, we should chant the holy name and the negative activity is to offend the holy name. So, we should avoid offenses to the holy name. So, both come in cultivation. Positive activities and negative restraints, and anu-śīlanaṁ also implies service with all the faculties of the living entity means body, mind, and words—all should be engaged in the service of the Lord. That is anu-śīlanaṁ. So, with our bodies we offer obeisances to the Lord. With our words we chant the holy name of Krishna or glorify the transcendental qualities of Krishna and with our minds we remember the pastimes of Krishna where we think of how to serve Krishna. All are included.

Now, Lord Chaitanya had one devotee named Mukunda who was a physician of the Mohammedan ruler. Once he was on a raised platform with the Mohammedan ruler and some servant of the Muslim king came to fan the king with peacock feathers. So, when he saw the peacock feathers, he fainted and fell from the platform, and the king thought he may have been harmed. So can we say that he was engaged in devotional service by thinking? How?

Devotee: [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: Yes, seeing the peacock feathers reminded him of Krishna. So, he thought of the pastimes of Krishna, remembered the pastimes of Krishna smaraṇam, and you see above sādhana-bhakti because this definition anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ this definition applies to sādhana-bhakti, bhāva-bhakti, and prema-bhakti. So, in sādhana-bhakti we serve the Lord with our senses, with our minds, with our words, but in bhāva-bhakti one does service with the spiritual body, which is actually beyond the material body, mind, and words, and that it is also included in anu-śīlanaṁ. So fainting is actually the outward symptom of some inner ecstasy which has nothing to do with the material body, mind, or words but it still comes in anu-śīlanaṁ.

Then anyābhilāṣitā, we discussed that one should not be motivated with the desire for anything but the service of Krishna, but in some rare exceptional situations like when one is threatened with death, one may just pray to the Lord, “Please save me.” But because in normal situations or in normal consciousness, one is not engaging in devotional service for anything material, he may in an extreme case pray to the Lord for material protection, it is not an obstruction in pure devotional service. Of course, one may want to protect the body, like we get upset, and we identify with the body, and we worry about the body and so on, but one may also want to protect the body without any false identification with the body, only in the mood of service to Krishna, which is not improper.

Like once some reporter asked Srila Prabhupada, “What would you do if some hoodlum came in the room and was ready to beat you or kill you. What would you do? Would you just stand there or what would you do?” And Srila Prabhupada replied, “Why should I let some rascal harm the body of Krishna’s devotee?” So that is correct. If we see the body as the property of Krishna but sometimes, we get some pain, and we just want to be relieved of the pain, but we should not if we can avoid it, we should not really pray to Krishna to relieve us from the pain. We should pray to Krishna to help us become more serious in devotional service and to make an advancement in devotional service.

Now this does raise another question that—suppose I’m doing bhakti so we say that bhakti should only be done for the sake of bhakti—anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ—there should be no other desire, but if I desire to get kṛṣṇa-prema for example, is it against the principles of uttamā-bhakti?

Devotee: No, [Unintelligible] There are no sādhana-bhakti. . .

Giriraj Swami: Yes, because we are desiring bhakti. We are doing sādhana-bhakti for the sake of bhāva-bhakti where we are doing bhāva-bhakti for the sake of prema-bhakti, but it’s for the sake of bhakti so it is anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ—it is free from any other desire because the desire is only for bhakti. And bhaktyā sañjātayā bhaktyā [Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.3.31] says bhakti comes from bhakti. So bhāva-bhakti comes from sādhana-bhakti, prema-bhakti comes from bhāva-bhakti but they are all bhakti. So, desiring a higher stage of bhakti is anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ — it is free from any other motive outside bhakti.

Then jñāna-karmādy-anāvṛtam—of course jnana doesn’t mean knowledge of Krishna, of the living entity, of the relationship between the living entity and Krishna. It means empirical knowledge or the knowledge of impersonal speculators that the living entity and the Supreme Lord are one. That is against bhakti—it covers it. And karma as we discussed, there are so many rules and regulations in karma – smārta-karma—that one must do this, one must not do that. So, someone thinks that he should do some good karma and that will help bhakti, that's wrong because bhakti is independent. Or if he thinks if he does not do some prescribed duty of karma then his bhakti will suffer, it is wrong because bhakti is independent. Bhakti stands on its own strength.

So here someone may raise the question that in the beginning we are weak. In bhakti also we are weak, so we need some support. So we take support from jnana or karma, what is the harm? And to the contrary if we don’t take support, how will we get the strength to advance?

But the answer is bhaktyā sañjātayā bhaktyā that bhakti gives rise to bhakti. So, a lower stage of bhakti itself gives rise to the next higher stage of bhakti. Shraddha gives rise to sādhu-saṅga, sādhu-saṅga gives rise to bhajana-kriyā. Like this sādhana-bhakti gives rise to bhāva-bhakti. Bhāva-bhakti gives rise to prema-bhakti. So, bhakti doesn’t depend on anything except the previous stage of bhakti for development.

Rupa Gosvami quotes one verse from Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that in the beginning some jnana like to know, I’m not the body, may be helpful or some vairāgya. Vairāgya is also not an item of bhakti, but some vairāgya, if it helps us to give up sinful activities, may be helpful in the beginning but jnana and vairāgya are not items of bhakti, but by bhakti one automatically gets jnana and vairāgya. So, bhakti is independent.

Devotee: [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: Yes if you can’t always think of Krishna then do sādhana-bhakti. If you can’t do sādhana-bhakti, then do karma-yoga.

Devotee: [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: There is benefit. Certainly, there is benefit because they’re following the orders of Krishna for gradual progress.

Devotee: [Unintelligible] because it’s following those recommendations like giving charity.

Giriraj Swami: Well, not directly. He has made a good point which I think we’ll discuss in a few minutes in the natural course. So now suppose my father dies, and as a good Hindu, as the son, I’m supposed to do the funeral ceremony, but the funeral ceremony comes in karma because my father is not a devotee, so it’s just ritualistic activity. So, should I do it or not? Actually, a devotee has nothing to do with karma—father’s karma, mother’s karma, dog's karma, or ant’s karma. But the devotee may consider that if I don’t do my father’s funeral, then people will criticize.

Like once one devotee asked Srila Prabhupada that, “If a Vaishnava sees a man drowning in a river, should he save him?” Srila Prabhupada said, “Actually, a devotee has no business interfering with the person’s karma.” Of course, it was a shocking answer, but then he said that, “There is another consideration called loka-vicāra, which means public opinion or popular sentiment and that if he didn’t save the drowning man, people would criticize that, Oh, he is supposed to be a devotee, he has no mercy.” So, the same with the funeral is that if we don’t attend to the funeral, then people will criticize.

So, it is not against bhakti because if I think that Oh, if I don’t do the last rites, I will go down in bhakti—that is wrong because bhakti is independent. But if we think that, For the sake of preaching, for the sake of others, I can go; They won’t have any bad ideas about devotees, and I can preach also. I can make some life members—then it’s not against bhakti, it’s not against bhakti.

Devotee: One time Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: Well, there is time, place, and circumstance. I saw beggars approach the window of the car in Bombay. Srila Prabhupada would probably just look straight ahead, he didn’t look at the beggars at all, but then again at the kumbh mela, ardh-kumbh mela 1971, so many villagers were coming to our camp and giving. In those days, they used to give one paisa or two paisa—very small coins. So Srila Prabhupada said, “We should collect all those small coins like one paisa, two paisa.” And then one morning he went through the kumbh mela grounds, and he was giving small coins to all the beggars. So it could be, it depends on the situation. Some of the beggars in Bombay are very rich, they’re very rich, and I’ve also heard that Srila Prabhupada said maybe especially in the dhāma that if someone is really just sitting like depending on the Lord then we can give, but if they approach you and harass you, then you needn’t give.

Devotee: So I guess my point is that it’s a kind of [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: Well, again there are different situations and different levels. The answer is already given in devotional service.

Devotee: [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: The answer is already given that if you give the money because you think that the person will appreciate you, and you are a devotee, and you will advance, and it will be favorable to you because you won’t develop a hard heart by not giving, there is no harm. But if you think that giving charity to poor people as a religious duty is required for advancement in bhakti, then it covers the independent nature of bhakti.

Then ādy. Yes, ādy means ‘etc.’ and as we know it includes yoga, tapasya, laziness, and so on. It also includes phalgu-vairāgya, false renunciation, or artificial austerities. Those can also make the heart hard. As we mentioned vairāgya is not in and of itself an item of devotional service. Vairāgya develops naturally as one progresses in bhakti. Phalgu-vairāgya means that even if something can be used favorably for Krishna’s service, we reject it because we think it’s material, we think it’s maya. So utsāhā Srila Prabhupada has emphasized in the whole purport and especially in relation to utsāhā that we should be enthusiastic to serve Krishna with anything and everything that’s favorable for the service of the Lord, and it implies also that Krishna doesn’t just mean Krishna in isolation, but Krishna also includes Krishna’s paraphernalia. Material energy can be used favorably in Krishna’s service. So that is yukta-vairāgya that without attachment we accept anything favorable for the service of Krishna even if it appears to be material.

Like the microphone, we don’t reject it because it’s material, because it’s maya, and phalgu-vairāgya means that we reject things even which are favorable for Krishna’s service because we think it’s maya. Like sometimes guests used to come to the Sunday feast in Boston, they would be on some macrobiotic diet, or they did so many austerities. Some of the young people did so many austerities, and I remember many times preaching to them to get them to break their fast or to break their diet because following a macrobiotic diet, not taking sugar, not taking milk products, is not as valuable as taking kṛṣṇa-prasāda. So one rejects kṛṣṇa-prasāda because he thinks it’s maya that’s phalgu-vairāgya, thinking that other austerity is more important or more beneficial than taking kṛṣṇa-prasāda, and it’s actually an offense to refuse kṛṣṇa-prasāda. So, people who are implicated in phalgu-vairāgya can commit offenses because they reject even things associated with the Lord as material. So that’s included in ādy, ‘etc.’—it should not be covered by false renunciation.

Now there are nine main processes of śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ smaraṇaṁ which you should know but we won’t discuss them now but when we come to Text Five and we discuss the advanced devotee. He is bhajana-vijñam means he is expert in bhajana especially śravaṇaṁ, kīrtanaṁ, and smaraṇaṁ. We’ll discuss those when we come to discuss the different types of devotees. And Srila Prabhupada explains that one who is fortunate can take to devotional service. So Janmashtami Prabhu raised the question of what makes one fortunate?

Generally, we say that pious activities make one fortunate but Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura has explained that there are different types of pious activities. Some pious activities lead to elevation to heavenly planets. Some pious activities lead to impersonal liberation, and some pious activities lead to devotional service. So, what kind of pious activities lead to devotional service? That is unknowing service rendered [service rendered unknowingly] to devotees. That type of pious activity, or we could say, unknown devotional service can lead to attainment of bhakti.

And the example is Narada muni—in his previous life. He was the son of a maidservant. The maidservant was engaged in the service of pure devotees during the period of cāturmāsya. So, he was just a small boy five years old, he didn’t know anything about bhakti, but he served the devotees. He wasn’t thinking, I’m serving the devotees, but he served the devotees where they would say, “Oh boy, bring this, bring that.” He would do it so that led to his attainment of bhakti, and they’d say, “Come take some prasāda.” He would take the remnants, and by pleasing them by his service, he became an object of their affection and mercy, and by their good wishes, he became a devotee.

So, the phrase devotional service may mean activities prior to the actual attainment of uttamā-bhakti which leads to uttamā-bhakti. So that makes one fortunate. So only someone who’s fortunate can get the seed of devotional service, and the seed of devotional service is the idea of devotional service like the plant is contained in the seed.

Any activity exists first in the form of a seed which is the idea to do it. First you get the idea, I will come to Vrindavan, I will enroll in VIHE. So, the activity begins with the idea, which is the seed. So, by hearing from devotees, hearing from the spiritual master, one gets the idea of devotional service, I should engage in devotional service, and the idea that I should engage in devotional service is shraddha. So, it is the first stage. To develop shraddha, there must be a preliminary association with sadhus. But after one develops faith by hearing from the devotees or hearing from the spiritual master, then the person systematically associates with devotees so he can hear more and more about devotional service, surrender more and more service to Krishna so that is sādhu-saṅga. And how to associate with devotees—sādhu-saṅga—is described in the Text Four.

TEXT 4

dadāti pratigṛhṇāti

guhyam ākhyāti pṛcchati

bhuṅkte bhojayate caiva

ṣaḍ-vidhaṁ prīti-lakṣaṇam

TRANSLATION

Offering gifts in charity, accepting charitable gifts, revealing one’s mind in confidence, inquiring confidentially, accepting prasāda and offering prasāda are the six symptoms of love shared by one devotee and another.

COMMENT

So, we should cultivate such association. In all of the stages of devotional service, there is a hierarchy—that means we begin with shraddha but when we come to sādhu-saṅga, shraddha does not disappear. Shraddha continues all the way up to prema. So, we should not think that the element of one stage disappears with the next stages, but the elements continue. The example is that in ether, there is the quality of sound, and in air there is the additional quality of sound and touch. In fire, there is the additional quality of form, but fire includes sound and touch and form. Similarly, in water there is the additional quality of taste, but water includes the other three qualities as well. And earth adds the quality of fragrance, but it includes all the other qualities. So prema includes shraddha, it includes sādhu-saṅga, it includes niṣṭhā, āsakti, ruci, and bhāva. They’re all included in prema.

So, whatever we discuss in one stage, it continues. We shouldn’t think that it disappears. Like when the baby’s body comes to a youth’s body then the baby’s body disappears, but it’s not so in bhakti. Shraddha continues and all the elements continue in the higher stages. So, guhyam ākhyāti pṛcchati—to inquire, from the very beginning even in the preliminary association with devotees, we inquire. And inquiry continues throughout, inquiry continues throughout. It’s one of the. . . As mentioned in Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, it is one of the items of devotional service—even after one surrenders to the spiritual master and takes initiation he inquires, but with sādhu-saṅga there is inquiry and inquiry continues as one advances. So, the basic idea is that we should be interested in spiritual advancement of life, and we should inquire as Sanatana Gosvami set the example with Lord Chaitanya, ke āmi – “Who am I? Why have I come in the material world? Why am I suffering? How can I become free from suffering?” About six questions Sanatana Gosvami asked Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu answered one by one.

So, it is very important to be interested as Srila Prabhupada mentioned in the previous purport,

tasmād guruṁ prapadyeta jijñāsuḥśreya uttamam [Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 11.3.21] when one is interested in inquiring into the ultimate good, then he should approach a spiritual master. The ultimate good is Krishna consciousness, śreyaḥ—śreya uttamam. In Sanskrit there are two words śreyas uttamam and preyas. Preyas means immediate gratification—like a child he sees something, he wants to eat it. He doesn’t want to go to school, he wants to play. That is preyas but the parents know that if he just plays, if he never goes to school and doesn’t get educated then he will suffer. He won’t be able to cope in the world and will suffer later. So, they know that śreyas is more important than preyas. So, when one is interested in inquiring into the ultimate good śreyas uttamā, then he should approach a spiritual master. So many people are asking so many types of questions. Srila Prabhupada says [that] in the morning the birds are chirping, they’re also asking, “Where are there some nice worms? Where can I get some nice worms to eat?”

So, everybody is asking questions. In the courtroom the attorneys are asking questions, “Where were you at 7:00 p.m. on the night of October 19th?” And in the market the buyers are asking questions, “What quality of cotton is this? How much does it cost per meter?” So, there are so many questions and answers. The newspaper reporters are asking questions, “What are you going to do about the plague?” So, there are so many questions and answers going on throughout the universe in every species of life, but the questions of ordinary people relate to ordinary things of the world mostly preyas—immediate gratification not śreyas, but when one is interested in śreyas the ultimate good, then he can approach a spiritual master. And in one sense every devotee is a spiritual master. He can guide others; he can guide new people at least.

So, one should be sincerely interested in the transcendental subject, and he should open his heart. If he has doubts and he keeps them in his heart, then he can’t progress. So, he should be sincere, and he should be straightforward. He shouldn’t have fear or shame that Oh, what if I ask a stupid question and he can’t address it? He should be free from fear, free from shame, and with an open heart he should inquire, and if he has some doubt, he should expose it. If he has some difficulty, he should expose it. And the devotee also should answer with an open heart. He shouldn’t be afraid that Oh, if I tell him that he shouldn’t eat meat, he’ll get upset, and then he won’t give a big donation. So, both the inquirer should be open-hearted, and the devotee who replies should also be open-hearted, not hiding anything out of fear or shame. This is the central item guhyam ākhyāti pṛcchati, and of course offering food, accepting prasāda, and giving gifts, and accepting the gifts are also.

And here Srila Prabhupada emphasizes what gift. What gift do the devotees have to give? Krishna consciousness, Krishna consciousness. The best gift that we can give anyone is Krishna consciousness and Srila Prabhupada specifically mentions the holy name; the best gift that we can give is the holy name which is the best process to become Krishna conscious.

Devotee: [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: Yes, giving books means giving Krishna consciousness because we are giving the seed, we are giving the ideas, we are giving the methods how to become Krishna conscious. Yes, that is true. And they should reciprocate—they should give some donation for the book, or they should give some time to chant the holy name. Srila Prabhupada said preaching means there should be some result, and he said the result should be either that they take the book and get some contribution, or they take the holy name and chant.

Devotee: [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: You mean on Ekādaśī if you offer prasāda with grains?

Devotee: [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: Or he wants to do a full fast? But someone offers him some prasāda. He should offer respects to the prasāda like Haridasa Thakura, he wanted to finish his rounds before he ate but when prasāda was offered because prasāda is Krishna, so he didn’t want to disrespect the prasāda, he wanted to honor the prasāda, but not eat so he offered just respectful obeisances, and he prayed to the prasāda, offered prayers to the prasāda, and then Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare

Devotee: [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: That you can think. We will continue with our discussion.

So, Srila Prabhupada, after the first Bombay pandal, or anyway around the time of the first Bombay pandal, after the first Bombay pandal, he met with the life members, and he quoted the verse. We didn’t have The Nectar of Instruction but he quoted the verse in relation to the life members. How they should associate with devotees—that is sādhu-saṅga before bhajana-kriyā before surrendering to the spiritual master and engaging fully in the regular process of devotional service. How to associate with the devotees? That they can invite the devotees to their houses for prasāda, and they can come to our temple, come to our festivals and take prasāda. That is bhuṅkte bhojayate caiva, offering prasāda and accepting prasāda. And they can give some contribution to help the work of the society, and in exchange they can accept transcendental gifts, specifically Srila Prabhupada’s books – that is dadāti pratigṛhṇāti. And they can inquire about the philosophy of Krishna consciousness, about the practice of devotional service and hear the explanations. So that is guhyam ākhyāti pṛcchati. So, he explained it especially in relation to life members or friends who are regularly visiting the temples, regularly associating with the devotees—how they can increase their association and thus make advancement. So, this is sādhu-saṅga.

Now Srila Prabhupada quotes the commentary of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura in the purport that the other side of the injunction to associate with devotees in six-fold reciprocations is to avoid the association of non-devotees in the same six ways. We shouldn’t eat food cooked by karmis, what to speak of Mayavadis, and so on. We shouldn’t reveal our minds to them, we shouldn’t take advice from them. They can’t help us, but their association could harm us, and we shouldn’t even accept gifts from them because when we take their gifts, we also take their contamination with it and unless one is very strong like uttamā mahā-bhāgavata, you can be affected.

So tomorrow we will discuss some of the practical applications—how to associate and especially how to avoid association with non-devotees because it’s very subtle, it’s very subtle. So, we’ll discuss that tomorrow and then we will proceed to Text Five.

Now I had written a paper dealing with some of the issues raised in The Nectar of Instruction, not for the course but I thought that the paper may be interesting because it’s the same philosophy, and so at the end you can pick up the paper. It has relevance especially to Text Five and Six. Are there any questions?

Devotee: [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: Oh yeah, it’s called guru discussions. Yes, slightly revised, not revised, but a few more quotes have been added.

Devotee: [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: You’re here by your good karma. I think you are here because you have some faith, and you want to associate with devotees, and you want to engage in devotional service—that means you are here because of your prior development of devotional services.

Devotee: [Unintelligible]

Giriraj Swami: We may accept a gift from a Mayavadi, but we should not become implicated in association with the Mayavadis. That’s the danger. So if it’s just a casual meeting, and he gives a small gift, and you immediately engage it in the service of Guru and Gauranga, there is not much chance of further implication. But if he gives you something that he expects you to appreciate him and entertain him and develop a relationship with him, then that can be dangerous. And we’ll read in Text Five about the madhyam-vaiṣṇava that you should neglect the envious, you should neglect the envious, we shouldn’t try to preach to them because if you become implicated with envious people like Mayavadis who can be most envious, they can become disturbed, and they won’t really be able to convert the Mayavadis, they’ll just increase the tension, but that way there is not much implication so we could do it. We have to judge each case. Did you raise your hand?

Srila Prabhupada ki jaya! Gaura premānande, Hari Haribol!