SB 2.3.17 – The Beginning of the New Year

Giriraj Swami: We welcome you to today’s Sunday festival and love feast. Tonight’s topic will be related to the New Year. We have just begun the new year, and when one year ends and the next year begins, we naturally think about the past year, all that happened, good and bad if you will. And we think about the next year, how we want to lead our lives in the next year. And we may make resolutions, “I will come to maṅgala-ārati every day," or, “I will come to the Sunday program every Sunday,” “I will chant so many rounds, read so much, do some service, contribute some amount to the cause.” Other people may make other types of resolutions; not to become angry, not to overeat. But what is the best way to utilize our time in the next year? That answer is given in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, in the verse that I shall read and discuss now. So, please repeat after me. This is an invocation of auspiciousness, so please repeat after me.

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, Canto Two, Chapter Three, “Pure Devotional Service,”

TEXT 17

āyur harati vai puṁsām

udyann astaṁ ca yann asau

tasyarte yat-kṣaṇo nīta

uttama-śloka-vārtayā

TRANSLATION

Both by rising and by setting, the sun decreases the duration of life of everyone, except one who utilizes the time by discussing topics of the all-good Personality of Godhead.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

This verse indirectly confirms the greater importance of utilizing the human form of life to realize our lost relationship with the Supreme Lord by acceleration of devotional service. Time and tide wait for no man. So the time indicated by the sunrise and the sunset will be uselessly wasted if such time is not properly utilized for realizing identification of spiritual values. Even a fraction of the duration of life wasted cannot be compensated by any amount of gold. Human life is simply awarded to a living entity (jīva) so that he can realize his spiritual identity and his permanent source of happiness. A living being, especially the human being, is seeking happiness because happiness is the natural situation of the living entity. But he is vainly seeking happiness in the material atmosphere. A living being is constitutionally a spiritual spark of the complete whole, and his happiness can be perfectly perceived in spiritual activities. The Lord is the complete spirit whole, and His name, form, quality, pastimes, entourage and personality are all identical with Him. Once a person comes into contact with any one of the above-mentioned energies of the Lord through the proper channel of devotional service, the door to perfection is immediately opened. In the Bhagavad-gītā (2.40) the Lord has explained such contact in the following words: “Endeavors in devotional service are never baffled. Nor is there failure. A slight beginning of such activities is sufficient even to deliver a person from the great ocean of material fears.” As a highly potent drug injected intravenously acts at once on the whole body, the transcendental topics of the Lord injected through the ear by the pure devotee of the Lord can act very efficiently. Aural realization of the transcendental messages implies total realization, just as fructification of one part of a tree implies fructification of all other parts. This realization for a moment in the association of pure devotees like Śukadeva Gosvāmī prepares one’s complete life for eternity. And thus the sun fails to rob the pure devotee of his duration of life, inasmuch as he is constantly busy in the devotional service of the Lord, purifying his existence. Death is a symptom of the material infection of the eternal living being; only due to material infection is the eternal living entity subjected to the law of birth, death, old age and disease.

The materialistic way of pious activities like charity is recommended in the smṛti-śāstras as quoted by Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura.

COMMENT

Now, please listen very attentively.

PURPORT (continued)

Money given in charity to a suitable person is guaranteed bank balance in the next life. Such charity is recommended to be given to a brāhmaṇa. If the money is given in charity to a non-brāhmaṇa (without brahminical qualification) the money is returned in the next life in the same proportion. If it is given in charity to a half-educated brāhmaṇa, even then the money is returned double. If the money is given in charity to a learned and fully qualified brāhmaṇa, the money is returned a hundred and a thousand times, and if the money is given to a veda-pāraga (one who has factually realized the path of the Vedas), it is returned by unlimited multiplication. The ultimate end of Vedic knowledge is realization of the Personality of Godhead, Lord Kṛṣṇa, as stated in the Bhagavad-gītā (vedaiś ca sarvair aham eva vedyaḥ). There is a guarantee of money’s being returned if given in charity, regardless of the proportion. Similarly, a moment passed in the association of a pure devotee by hearing and chanting the transcendental messages of the Lord is a perfect guarantee for eternal life, for returning home, back to Godhead. Mad-dhāma gatvā punar janma na vidyate. In other words, a devotee of the Lord is guaranteed eternal life. A devotee’s old age or disease in the present life is but an impetus to such guaranteed eternal life.

COMMENT

So, when the new year comes and the old year goes, we mark the passage of time, one year, the rising and setting of the sun, three hundred and sixty-five times. And what is the result of the passage of time? The result is we are one year closer to death. Every living entity, according to his past karma or destiny, is allotted a certain duration of life in a particular body. It is already decided from the time you take birth how long you will live, how many breaths you will take. There are yogis who can prolong the duration of their lives by controlling their breathing. By slowing their breathing, they can live for one hundred years, two hundred years, four hundred years, because they have been allotted a certain number of breaths. But we, ordinary people, have no such ability to slow our breathing. And therefore, we have only so much time to live. And with every rising and setting of the sun, our duration of life is decreased.

Srila Prabhupada says that we may ask a person his age, and he may say, “I am twenty-five years old, or fifty years old,” but Srila Prabhupada says, what he is really saying is, “I am twenty-five years dead, or I am fifty years dead. That much of my life is gone, dead and gone.” So, what is the purpose of our life? Just to eat, and sleep, and have sex, and defend ourselves like animals? They also take birth, and they grow, they mate, they have off-springs, they age, and they die. Is that what we are meant to do as human beings? No. We are meant for a higher purpose, and the higher purpose is to get out of this cycle of birth and death, and attain eternal life, attain a life of happiness, which we all desire but which is never perfectly fulfilled in material life, or in the bodily concept of life. And how is that eternal life full of bliss and knowledge realized? It is realized by hearing topics of the all-good Personality of Godhead. What we are doing right now, hearing topics of Krishna, that will not rob us of the time of our life, but it will bring us closer to eternal life. It sounds very easy and it is easy, but how much of our life do we spend hearing about Krishna, and how much time do we spend hearing about other topics and speaking about other topics and endeavoring for other ends?

Srila Prabhupada had a friend in Bombay named Brijratan Mohatta. Mr. Mohatta had been the richest man in what later became Pakistan, before the partition. He had been the richest man there, his family. I also visited Pakistan quite regularly for a number of years to bring the message of Krishna, and I saw his old house, Mohatta Mahal. It was really like a palace, like a Rajasthani palace. And that Mohatta Mahal after partition was given to Muhammad Ali Jinnah who became the president of Pakistan. Anyway, he was a very wealthy man. And as businessmen do, he was always calculating in terms of gain and loss, profit and loss; every businessman does. So, Srila Prabhupada was very expert in speaking in the language that people could understand and appreciate. So, he said to Mr. Mohatta, “In the ledger of your life there are two columns; profit and loss. And time spent in Krishna consciousness is profit, and time spent in anything without Krishna consciousness is loss.” So, naturally, every businessman wants to maximize his profits and minimize his losses. And then, Srila Prabhupada said, “The time of your life is so precious that no amount of money can buy you any extra time.”

A very rich man may want to extend his life, he may feel that his work is incomplete, his plans have not been realized, his goals have not been met, whatever it is. And if he tells the doctor, “I will give you any amount of money. I will give you a hundred thousand dollars. I will give you a million dollars. Just extend my life one week longer,” the doctor cannot do it, no one can do it. So, that means for millions of dollars, when the time comes, you cannot buy an extra moment. So, that means that every moment in our life is precious. And we don’t know how many moments we have, so we should utilize every moment for the best purpose, to realize God, to realize our eternal life in Krishna consciousness, that should be our consciousness. We should not take anything for granted because we don’t know how much time we have, and we don’t know how much facility we will have. Sometimes it happens, it is unfortunate. Just today, I read a letter from a devotee in Surat, India, a very successful businessman, not that old. I don’t know for sure, but maybe early fifties. And he just discovered that he has some dread disease that could be fatal. They are doing investigations and hoping to find some solution. Who would have imagined? Who would have guessed? Such a young man, good wife and nice son and daughter, thriving business, who would have imagined that all of a sudden? And then, sometimes a person may survive a stroke or whatever it is, but not be the same. So, even chanting Hare Krishna may not be possible. One is still in the body, but one may not be able to chant as one can now. So, we should really take seriously the facility that we have now, because we cannot say for sure how long we will have this facility.

But the process is very easy, just hearing about Krishna, just like we are doing. And hearing about Krishna will purify our hearts, ceto-darpaṇa-mārjanam, and it will bring us closer to Krishna. And Krishna is all blissful, He is eternal, He is all-powerful. We see the deities of Radha and Krishna, Krishna is always smiling, you never see a picture of Krishna lamenting, moaning, crying. No, Krishna is always happy. And we are meant to share in Krishna’s happiness. Not only is Krishna happy, but all of His associates are happy. And that is Krishna’s nature, and that is also our nature. But because of having fallen into material existence, our eternal blissful nature has been covered. But if we associate with Krishna by hearing about Him and chanting His holy name, we share in Krishna’s happiness, we become happy. You can make an experiment. I have done it many times. You may meet a person who, whatever their mood is, morose, angry, stubborn, skeptical, and ask them to chant Hare Krishna. They may say, “No, I don’t want to, I don’t believe in this,” whatever, or, “I don’t feel good today.” And tell them, as I have done many times, “I challenge you to chant Hare Krishna and not smile.” And it happens every time without fail. They chant Hare Krishna, they can’t help smiling; artificially they might try, but naturally they smile. It happens every time, they can’t avoid it. There is something about the chanting that just makes you want to smile. And as the saying goes, I don’t know how true it is or not, but “It takes more muscles to frown than to smile.”

Now, a couple of years ago, we had a japa retreat in Joshua Tree, and in the japa retreat, we did a lot of japa. Japa means chanting the Hare Krishna maha-mantra on beads. And there were a lot of talks about chanting. Talks about chanting means talks about Krishna. Chanting Krishna’s name means associating with Krishna. And devotees had profound realization of Krishna’s presence through their chanting, concentrated, focused chanting. And after the retreat, one of the participants who actually lives in the Bay Area stopped by at my little ashram in Santa Barbara and spent the night there. And the next morning, he couldn’t stop chanting. Not only could he not stop chanting, he couldn’t stop smiling. [laughter] And it actually started to hurt. And so, he was chanting and dancing, he was in such a jubilant mood, he was dancing in front of my deities, including the deity of Srila Prabhupada, and he was praying, “This chanting is so ecstatic, but the only thing is I am smiling so much and it is hurting.” And, he got the intuition, or the answer that, “The reason it hurts is because you haven’t had enough practice smiling. [laughter] If you keep smiling, then those muscles will get stronger, and it won’t hurt anymore.” So, it actually works.

Now, within this very blissful and encouraging discussion of utilizing our time in Krishna consciousness, there is a quotation from smṛti-śāstras quoted by Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura, one of our predecessor acharyas, about how money given in charity is returned. Now this, of course, is of interest to all of us because we always talk about time and money. Sometimes you say, “Time is money.” So, up until now, we are discussing how to invest our time, and Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura quotes this passage from shastra about how to invest our money. And he says that if you invest, if you give charity to a non-brahman, you get the money back in equal proportion. In other words, if there is some beggar on the street, you give him a dollar, then according to the law of karma, the dollar will come back to you, it is not lost. If you give to a half-educated brahman, now, that is sort of hard to calculate. [laughter] There are a lot of brahmans who are definitely not fully educated. [laughter] So, give them the benefit of the doubt, we will say they are half educated. And say you give the brahman ten dollars. So, you are guaranteed the same amount back double. So, you get twenty dollars back eventually. If you give to a fully qualified brahman, now, these are not very easy to find. If you give to fully qualified brahman, you get the money back a hundred or a thousand times. And if you give the money to a veda-pāraga, someone who has factually realized the path of the Vedas, which means Krishna, you get the money back in unlimited multiplications.

Now, how is that possible? It is possible only if you enter the spiritual realm, because the spiritual realm is unlimited. Everything in the material realm is limited. In fact, the word maya literally means to measure, or to count. Everything in the material world, we can measure it and count it. Whereas the spiritual world, Vedānta-sūtra says brahman is unlimited and always expanding. It is already unlimited, and it is always expanding. So, that is the unlimited, blissful, spiritual realm. But what Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura is saying in relation to this verse is, just as money invested in charity will come back to you, time invested in Krishna consciousness will also come back to you, no matter the proportion. Now yes, if you give the charity to the right person, like Srila Prabhupada, a fully realized soul, you get the money back in unlimited multiplications. But even if you don’t, of course, there is no reason why you shouldn’t, but even if you don’t, any charity you give, you will get the money back. And according to whom you give the charity, you will get the money back in greater or lesser proportion. So, in the same way, any time that you devote to Krishna consciousness, that time will come back to you in the sense that it will bring you closer to your eternal life. And how quickly you reach that goal depends on how intensely you use the time in Krishna consciousness.

Srila Prabhupada uses this phrase, amazing sentence, the very first sentence of the purport, “This verse indirectly confirms the greater importance of utilizing the human form of life to realize our lost relationship with the Supreme Lord by acceleration of devotional service.” And he says, “Time and tide wait for no man.” So, acceleration; you know what that means. It means to go faster. You put your foot down on the accelerator and the car goes faster. So, in a sense, we are in a race against time, time and tide wait for no man, every day the sun is rising and setting and our duration of life is decreased. So we have to accelerate, we have to reach the goal before time runs out, and we have to leave this body, and then we don’t know where we are going. We don’t know if we will have the association of devotees like we have now, we don’t know if we will have this facility like we have now. So, we have to accelerate to go faster.

So, these are the types of thoughts that would be very fruitful for us to have as we enter the new year. And this chanting and hearing about Krishna is so enjoyable. And the more you do it, the more enjoyable it becomes. Material things, generally, the more you do them, the more you get tired of them. I remember when I was in high school. In those days, we had records, phonograph records, gramophone records. So, I got my little allowance, and I would save up, and every once in a while, I would buy a record that I really liked. And if I played it too much, which was the natural tendency, eventually I would get sick of it, I wouldn’t want to hear it anymore. So, that is material happiness. And then I would set it aside for a while, hoping that same pleasure would come back, but it never came back the same because I had already gotten sick of it. Eating; eating is something. . .that first bite of. . . Yesterday’s feast was amazing. And that also counts, that is time invested in Krishna consciousness. [laughter] But anyway, I don’t know what it was, those of you who were here can imagine what it was. So, the first spoonful, it was sweet. The first spoonful was amazing, it was delightful. The second, the third. Then, okay, one cup, “Are there more?” Okay, but eventually, it starts to wear off because you can only take so much, the stomach starts to get full, and then if you eat more, you get sick. But this chanting and hearing about Krishna is the opposite. The more you do it, the more you enjoy it, the more you want to do it more.

It is like one devotee mentioned at a japa retreat, that he used to think that chanting his rounds was something to get out of the way so that he could live his life. And now he feels that living his life, in that sense, is something he wants to get out of the way so he can chant. [laughter] In the beginning it may take a little practice because we are conditioned, but as we chant and hear and develop taste, then that is really what we want to do. We want to use every moment that we can. That is actually one of the symptoms of developing ecstatic love, that you want to utilize every moment in Krishna’s service. So, it is a wonderful process, it is a wonderful opportunity that Srila Prabhupada and our previous acharyas have given us. So, we should take a full advantage with enthusiasm. If someone told you. . . This isn’t a scam, there are a lot of scams out there too, but this isn’t a scam. But if someone told you and it was real, “If you give me a thousand dollars, ten minutes later I will give you a million dollars.” And it was for real, it wasn’t one of these Nigerian, Spanish. . . [laughter] You would rush to take that opportunity. So, that should be our mood, we want to rush to the temple, rush to get that association, rush to see the deities, rush to chant, rush to hear Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. And, as we are approaching the time, rush to take prasāda. [laughter]

When I sat down, I wasn’t sure what the schedule was. I knew I was supposed to begin at five and I saw this sign here, “Dear devotee, thank you for giving the Bhāgavatam class. Please end class by 8:10 a.m.” So I thought, Well, that gives me fourteen hours. [laughter] I could at least make a beginning. [laughter] I thought of mentioning it at the beginning of the class, but I thought it wouldn’t be appreciated that much. But now, having heard the class, you can get the idea, “That is really good, that is really good. Why fourteen hours? Why not fourteen years?” But still, we will honor the schedule and your valuable time, and we will end the class here. It does say we can have five minutes for questions and answers. [laughter] So, if you do have any questions or comments, we will take another five minutes. Yes?

Devotee: You mentioned earlier about if one is twenty-five years old, then instead of thinking of himself twenty-five years old, that he should in actuality consider himself twenty-five years dead, or he is dying.

Giriraj Swami: Yes.

Devotee: So, my question was, is the right understanding, then at the moment of conception, or birth, one should consider himself beginning to die, on the path of death?

Giriraj Swami: Yes, unless you use the time for hearing the glories of the Lord. But that is true. From the moment of conception actually, a certain duration of life is allotted to us. And time is ticking. It is like the, hate to say it, but like the football game. The clock is ticking. I don’t even know who was in at the Rose Bowl, but it was a good opportunity for devotees to go and chant the holy name. But the clock is ticking, clock is winding down, time is running out. It is just like that with our life. And that is why we have to really use the time we have, because we can’t increase the time, and we don’t know how much time we actually have, so yes. Yes, Servas Prabhu.

Devotee: Yes, there was a part where you read about giving in charity and [Unintelligible 00:51:29] giving it to a proper person. Does that mean that you will get that denomination in this life, or another life, or when you receive that? [laughter] I am just checking. [laughter]

Giriraj Swami: Well, the shastra says in the next life. But there is another statement in Mahābhārata that says that generally, one gets the result of one’s activities in the present life, half in the present life and half in the next life. But I must say that if someone gives money in charity like an investment, like a material investment, that is really not the proper mood. People may but it is really not the proper mood. We should really want to give that money, so that we can realize our eternal blissful life. And with the economy, the way it is, if you get it too soon, you might lose it sooner. [laughter] So, it might be safer to wait to the next life. [laughter] But yes. There are many cases of devotees who have been charitable. I could tell a story but it would. . . Well we have a few minutes. But there are instances of devotees who have given charity in this life and got it back many times over in the same life.

There is one devotee in Bombay, Dr. N.D. Desai. His father was a big industrialist, also a member of parliament. And his father died at a relatively young age, around the age of sixty. And Dr. Narendra Desai was his only son and heir to the business. And the talk around town, because we used to meet people, the talk around town was that Dr. Desai was a Pollyanna, an innocent, simple, idealistic person who could easily be cheated. And so, they were questioning whether he would be able to maintain his father’s business. And so, Dr. Desai, I would visit him from time to time. And one morning, I came very early. I had an early appointment in Bombay, and without even informing him, I just stopped by at his house early in the morning. And he was sitting on his sofa, it was a very beautiful home with nice furniture covered with silk, and he was sitting and chanting very, very intently. And I was very impressed, and I asked him about it; he said he does it every morning. And he said whatever strength and energy and intelligence he needs for his day’s work comes from his chanting early in the morning. And he took his father’s business. I don’t know how many  crores it was worth, but it expanded by many times. And people were in awe, “How did he do it?” So, that return, so many things in relation to our karma, if you will, come in the form of the intelligence that we get. So, the return he got came in the form of the intelligence that Krishna gave him, how to develop the business. And the business definitely multiplied ten times, maybe even a hundred times, I don’t know. And I think Krishna knew. He was giving in charity, and Krishna knew that if He gave him more, he would give more in charity, so it would be well used.

The Birla family, who is one of the richest families in India, is famous, at least they used to be famous, for their temples. Practically every major city, there is a major Birla temple. Birla temple in Delhi, Birla temple in Jaipur, Birla temple in Mathura on the way to Vrindavan, Birla temple in Hyderabad. And we knew the family, and someone told us that, I don’t know if you want to call it a curse or a blessing, but they were told by a sadhu that as long as they continue to build temples, they would be able to maintain their fortune and increase their fortune. And as soon as they stop building temples, they would lose it. But again, we don’t want to have that sort of materialistic attitude towards devotional service. But just on that pertinent question about when we get our returns. [laughter] Servas Prabhu is here to accept charity on behalf of the veda-pāraga. He probably knew that might be in your minds so he asked the question for you. Yes, you can realize the returns in the same life. But the best return is that you come closer to Krishna and closer to your eternal life with Krishna, which will really make you happy and really fulfill all your desires.

Hare Krishna.

Devotees: Haribol! [applause]