SB 10.3.15–17 – Using Our Tongues to Serve the Lord

[Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.3.15-17]

Giriraj Swami:

yatheme ‘vikṛtā bhāvās
tathā te vikṛtaiḥ saha
nānā-vīryāḥ pṛthag-bhūtā
virājaṁ janayanti hi

sannipatya samutpādya
dṛśyante ‘nugatā iva
prāg eva vidyamānatvān
na teṣām iha sambhavaḥ

evaṁ bhavān buddhy-anumeya-lakṣaṇair
grāhyair guṇaiḥ sann api tad-guṇāgrahaḥ
anāvṛtatvād bahir antaraṁ na te
sarvasya sarvātmana ātma-vastunaḥ

TRANSLATION

The mahat-tattva, the total material energy, is undivided, but because of the material modes of nature, it appears to separate into earth, water, fire, air and ether. Because of the living energy [jīva-bhūta], these separated energies combine to make the cosmic manifestation visible, but in fact, before the creation of the cosmos, the total energy is already present. Therefore, the total material energy never actually enters the creation. Similarly, although You are perceived by our senses because of Your presence, You cannot be perceived by the senses, nor experienced by the mind or words [avāṅ-mānasa-gocara]. With our senses we can perceive some things, but not everything; for example, we can use our eyes to see, but not to taste. Consequently, You are beyond perception by the senses. Although in touch with the modes of material nature, You are unaffected by them. You are the prime factor in everything, the all-pervading, undivided Supersoul. For You, therefore, there is no external or internal. You never entered the womb of Devakī; rather, You existed there already.

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

This same understanding is explained by the Lord Himself in Bhagavad-gītā (9.4):

mayā tatam idaṁ sarvaṁ
jagad-avyakta-mūrtinā
mat-sthāni sarva-bhūtāni
na cāhaṁ teṣv avasthitaḥ

“By Me, in My unmanifested form, this entire universe is pervaded. All beings are in Me, but I am not in them.”  

The Supreme Personality of Godhead is not perceivable through the gross material senses. It is said that Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa’s name, fame, pastimes, etc., cannot be understood by material senses. Only to one who is engaged in pure devotional service under proper guidance is He revealed. As stated in Brahma-saṁhitā (5.38):

premāñjana-cchurita-bhakti-vilocanena
santaḥ sadaiva hṛdayeṣu vilokayanti

One can see the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Govinda, always, within oneself and outside oneself, if one has developed the transcendental loving attitude toward Him. Thus for people in general, He is not visible. In the above-mentioned verse from Bhagavad-gītā, therefore, it is said that although He is all-pervading, everywhere present, He is not conceivable by the material senses. But actually, although we cannot see Him, everything is resting in Him. As discussed in the Seventh Chapter of Bhagavad-gītā, the entire material cosmic manifestation is only a combination of His two different energies, the superior, spiritual energy and the inferior, material energy. Just as the sunshine is spread all over the universe, the energy of the Lord is spread all over the creation, and everything is resting in that energy.

Yet one should not conclude that because He is spread all over He has lost His personal existence. To refute such arguments, the Lord says, “I am everywhere, and everything is in Me, but still I am aloof.” For example, a king heads a government which is but the manifestation of the king’s energy; the different governmental departments are nothing but the energies of the king, and each department is resting on the king’s power. But still one cannot expect the king to be present in every department personally. That is a crude example. Similarly, all the manifestations that we see, and everything that exists, both in this material world and in the spiritual world, are resting on the energy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The creation takes place by the diffusion of His different energies, and, as stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, He is everywhere present by His personal representation, the diffusion of His different energies.

One may argue that the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who creates the whole cosmic manifestation simply by His glance, cannot come within the womb of Devakī, the wife of Vasudeva. To eradicate this argument, Vasudeva said, “My dear Lord, it is not very wonderful that You appeared within the womb of Devakī, for the creation was also made in that way. You were lying in the Causal Ocean as Mahā-Viṣṇu, and by Your breathing, innumerable universes came into existence. Then You entered into each of the universes as Garbhodakaśāyī Viṣṇu. Then again You expanded Yourself as Kṣīrodakaśāyī Viṣṇu and entered into the heart of all living entities and entered even within the atoms. Therefore Your entrance into the womb of Devakī is understandable in the same way. You appear to have entered, but You are simultaneously all-pervading. We can understand Your entrance and nonentrance from material examples. The total material energy remains intact even after being divided into sixteen elements. The material body is nothing but a combination of the five gross elements — namely earth, water, fire, air and ether. Whenever there is a material body, it appears that such elements are newly created, but actually the elements are always existing outside of the body. Similarly, although You appear as a child in the womb of Devakī, You are also existing outside. You are always in Your abode, but still You can simultaneously expand Yourself into millions of forms.

“One has to understand Your appearance with great intelligence because the material energy is also emanating from You. You are the original source of the material energy, just as the sun is the source of the sunshine. The sunshine cannot cover the sun globe, nor can the material energy — being an emanation from You — cover You. You appear to be in the three modes of material energy, but actually the three modes of material energy cannot cover You. This is understood by the highly intellectual philosophers. In other words, although You appear to be within the material energy, You are never covered by it.”

COMMENT

This was what Vasudeva was saying in effect to Krishna.

PURPORT (continued)

We hear from the Vedic version that the Supreme Brahman exhibits His effulgence and therefore everything is illuminated. We can understand from Brahma-saṁhitā that the brahmajyoti, or the Brahman effulgence, emanates from the body of the Supreme Lord. And from the Brahman effulgence, all creation takes place. It is further stated in the Bhagavad-gītā that the Lord is the support of the Brahman effulgence. Originally He is the root cause of everything. But persons who are less intelligent think that when the Supreme Personality of Godhead comes within this material world, He accepts material qualities. Such conclusions are not mature, but are made by the less intelligent.

COMMENT

So we are reading Vasudeva’s prayers to Lord Krishna after Krishna appeared as his son in the prison house of the evil king, Kamsa. We are discussing a very intricate topic in the Tenth Canto of Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. So it is an advanced study. The more beginning study is the Bhagavad-gītā, and generally, we have classes in the Bhagavad-gītā in the evening, which are meant more for new people. But because by some arrangement, we have some new people here today, we will try to give some background to this intricate subject so that it becomes more comprehensible although it remains inconceivable. Our spiritual master Srila Prabhupada explains that the basic principles in every scripture are the same. Every scripture will say that God is great, that God is kind, that God created the world, that God maintains the world. And these basic principles are shared in common by all bona fide scriptures and theistic teachers. But the special contribution of the Vedic scriptures, especially Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, is that the Vedic scriptures give more information than other scriptures. Other scriptures will say, God is great but how great God is no one knows. Still Vedic scriptures give us as much an idea of how great God is as is possible for human beings to comprehend.

Here, we are discussing the various contradictions or apparent contradictions in relation to the Lord that themselves prove that the Lord is beyond the material creation. He is beyond the ability of material senses and mind and intelligence to comprehend. One can only understand the Lord by a service attitude, by devotion. In the Bhagavad-gītā, which is spoken by the Lord Himself, the Lord says, bhaktyā mām abhijānāti, that He can be understood only by devotional service. One cannot understand the Lord by material knowledge or mental speculation because the Lord is beyond the jurisdiction of the materially conditioned mind and senses.

ataḥ śrī-kṛṣṇa-nāmādi
na bhaved grāhyam indriyaiḥ
sevonmukhe hi jihvādau
svayam eva sphuraty adaḥ

One cannot approach the Lord with one’s material mind or senses, but the Lord reveals Himself to one who engages faithfully in His service, and that service begins with the tongue. Generally, we think of rendering service with the hands. We can do so many things with the hands. But here, in the verse quoted from the Padma-Purana, it says, sevonmukhe hi jihvādau, that one must have the attitude of service to the Lord beginning with the tongue. This is very surprising. How can we serve with the tongue? The tongue has two functions: to vibrate and to taste. When we use the tongue to vibrate sacred sounds, such as principally the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, the holy names of the Lord, that is service. When we repeat the Vedic sounds or words that we have understood from the scripture and the wise teachers, that is service to the Lord. So, we serve the Lord with the tongue by chanting the holy name and glories of the Lord and explaining the science of Krishna consciousness. We also serve the Lord by using the tongue to taste. Tasting is the second function of the tongue. Generally, conditioned souls use the tongue to taste anything that appeals to their taste buds, and they, in ignorance, do not even discriminate, what is fit to be tasted or eaten and what is not fit. And thus, they do not hesitate to kill innocent creatures so they can taste the cooked flesh of these poor souls. And of course, in all spheres in our contemporary materialistic commercialized society, there is advertising to induce us to eat this and that, drink this and that, wear this and that, do this and that.

I recently met a lady from New Zealand whose parents own a farm. They seem to be quite wealthy, but good people. They grew up on the land and worked hard. And, there were not many houses in the country there, but every mile or two, there would be another house. And somehow, she would make friends. So, one of her neighbors had farm animals. And one of them, one of the animals I guess, was a lamb. And they would play with the animals. It was just so natural. They would play with the animals. They would understand that the animals are living, conscious, feeling entities. And so this one animal was called by the neighboring family “CD.” So, the lady I was speaking to asked the girl, “What is the meaning of CD?” “Well, CD means Christmas Dinner.” Now, how odd, how odd. She is playing with the lamb, cuddling, fondling, feeding it, playing with it. But the lamb is going to end up as Christmas dinner. Isn’t that odd? There is some sort of disconnect, as they say. And it is very hard to explain. It is actually very hard to explain.

When I was visiting my parents’ home, I guess it must have been say fifteen years ago, it happened that my nephew, sometimes we have to do things in the course of service. So, the idea was everyone was going out except for my sister’s boy, who was about four years old. And so, I was left to take care of him. So, I had no experience. I don’t mind, but what do I do? I mean, how do I do this? So, they said, “Well, it is not that difficult. He likes a DVD called ‘Babe.’ So, you just put the DVD in the DVD player. They have to show me how to make that work. And he will be happy. He will just watch it. And even if it ends before we get back, that is okay. Just play it again. And, if there is any difficulty, you can call us.” So, there I was, watching “Babe” after more than twenty-five years in the movement, not having been exposed to these cultural creations. And it was actually quite nice. It was about a farm and the animals on the farm could talk. And not sure what species Babe was - Babe was a pig. To come to the point, the film won an Academy Award for cinematography, I think, photography, something. And the cameraman said that before he began filming “Babe,” he ate meat. But by working so intimately with the animals, he came to understand that they are living, conscious, and feeling people. They are just in different types of bodies. But they have thoughts and feelings and desires, just like we do. And after understanding that about the animals that he was filming, he felt there is no alternative but to give up eating meat. How could he be responsible for killing these perfectly innocent creatures just to satisfy his taste buds?

So, it is natural to feel for other creatures. It is natural. But the vested interests, the big business that makes money off selling the flesh of the animals that they have killed, want to dull our consciousness so that we don’t have that natural feeling for the animals. And therefore, we will not hesitate to buy that product. And children in particular,  well, actually everyone can, they can easily relate to animals as being living creatures that they can make friends with. So, one of the big food chains, hamburger specialists, ran an advertising campaign, very idyllic, with little children sort of prancing through the forest amidst the trees. And hanging from the trees were not apples or oranges or pears, but there were hamburgers. And so, these innocent, sweet little children were just picking hamburgers from the trees. And these clever people, in the language of the Bhagavad-gītā, asurās, these clever asurās were trying to beguile the children into thinking that, Oh, they just grow on trees. We are not really harming any creatures. And as Srila Prabhupada said, “They have their propaganda, and we have our propaganda. And it is a fight. They will use whatever means they can to keep people in illusion. And we will use whatever means we can to bring people to awareness, to consciousness, to knowledge.”

So, sevonmukhe hi jihvādau, how do we use the tongue to serve the Lord? Well, first, we should not use it to eat the bodies of animals that have been killed to satisfy the taste and hunger of greedy people. But we should use the tongue to taste Krishna-prasāda. In the Bhagavad-gītā, Lord Krishna says, patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ yo me bhaktyā prayacchati, that if you offer Him with love and devotion a leaf, a fruit, a flower, or some water with love and devotion, He will accept it. And He is so kind and also powerful that while accepting our offering, He leaves remnants for us. Now, an ordinary person might see us in the temple. Earlier, during our worship of the spiritual master, guru-puja, we offered flowers. And we are confident that the spiritual master, who is also manifest in a deity form, that is a whole other subject that is worth discussing sometime, he accepts it. But a flower is easier to understand. If you offer me a flower, I can accept it; I can appreciate it; I can smell it; I can touch it to my eyes or forehead because flowers are very cooling and soothing. But the flower remains. But offering food, the servant of the Lord will bring a plate with food to offer to the Lord. And after the offering, the food is seen to remain on the plate. So someone could question, did anything happen? This is just in people’s minds that the Lord is accepting the offering or eating it. But the answer is that the Lord does accept it, He does eat. But He eats in a different way. As stated in the Brahma-saṁhitā, the Lord can perform the functions of all senses with one sense. We cannot. We can see with our eyes, but we cannot smell with our eyes. We cannot taste with our eyes. But the Lord, He can taste with His eyes. By seeing the food, He can taste it. He can taste with His ears, by hearing the loving prayers of His devotees requesting Him to accept their offering, He can eat. And if He wanted, He could consume it all and leave nothing for us. But out of His kindness, of course, the skeptic might say, out of your illusion or wishful thinking, but actually, out of His kindness, He leaves the food but not in the same form in which we offered it. But He leaves it in a spiritualized form. And I could experience the difference.

As a new person just beginning to come to the temple in Boston, the devotees, say in the morning, they would prepare cooked cereal, oatmeal. So they would take a portion of the oatmeal and put it on a plate and offer it to the deity of Krishna. And that was called mahā-prasāda. And the rest was also prasāda. It was considered offered. But the food that was offered on the plate to the deity, which they called mahā-prasāda, tasted different. I could taste the difference. But I was new, I was shy, I didn’t say anything. And then one morning when I was sitting with some of the devotees honoring prasāda, one of the devotees commented to another devotee, “Did you ever notice how the prasāda from the deity’s plate tastes as if it has a fine sprinkling of sugar all over it?” I thought, Wow, they are tasting the difference too. It is not just me. And then my faith increased that not only is the philosophy reasonable and logical and comprehensive, but you can actually feel, you can actually experience what the philosophy says. I had a godbrother, have a god-brother named Tejus dasa who was serving in India, probably in the late 1960s or maybe early 1970s in the Peace Corps. And being in India, he visited some of the temples, Vaishnava temples in South India. And he had prasāda and he tasted the difference between the prasāda and ordinary food. And that was the end of it. But then when he returned home to Buffalo, New York, he attended a program with Hare Krishna devotees and they gave him some prasāda. And he recognized the taste, not the ingredients or the style of cooking, but this special taste that prasāda has that ordinary food does not have. And then he made the connection, “Oh, this is what I had in India. This is not ordinary food.” So just being vegetarian is not enough. It is certainly better than eating meat. Eating vegetarian food is certainly better. But really, the food should be offered to Krishna because everything belongs to Him. So it is our duty to offer it to Him. We actually don’t have the right to take anything without His permission. We don’t have the right to eat even fruits and vegetables without His permission because they belong to Him. We didn’t create the fruits or vegetables or grain or sugar.

So He gives us permission, but under conditions, as stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ yo me bhaktyā prayacchati, that if we offer the food to Krishna first with love and devotion, He will accept it. And then we can take the remnants as His mercy, as prasāda. Otherwise, as stated in another verse in the Bhagavad-gītā, even if we eat vegetarian food, but it is not offered to Krishna, it is sinful. Because again, it is not our property. We are not able to manufacture food. Only Krishna can provide food. That is not our property, just to take. But we take His permission and He gives us His permission if we offer it to Him first. And thus, we can engage in the service of the Lord with the tongue. And by that service attitude, we please the Lord and the Lord reveals Himself to us. It is just like if you were to see some very wealthy person on the street, say Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple. You can’t just walk up to him and say, “How much money do you have?” “Who are you?” Why should he tell you? You can’t just go up to him and say, “When you want to relax and enjoy yourself, what do you do?” “Well, who are you? Why should I tell you what I do in my private life?” But if you become a faithful worker for him, you become his servant or secretary, then gradually he will reveal more and more about himself to you. And he may, in the end, entrust you with his accounts. And you know exactly how much money he has and where it came from. Or if you become part of his domestic staff, if he wants to, whatever, watch the DVD or go boating or whatever he does, eat boomy bars or wonder bars. You know everything because you are not there to probe and try to take advantage of the information about him for some reason of your own. You are there to serve him. You are there to facilitate him in his work and in his enjoyment. So you are part of the team. So he shares with you confidential information.

So if we become sincere servants of Krishna, faithful servants of Krishna, He will gradually reveal more and more about Himself to us. And then we will get to begin to know how great God is. Not just that He creates the universe, but how He creates the universe. There is so many different speculative theories. People just do not know who God is or how He works. There is so many speculative theories about creation. I don’t know if things have changed since I was in school, but one is called the watchmaker theory. That God creates the world and then He leaves it and has nothing more to do with it. Just like a watchmaker, he will finely engineer the watch, you acquire the watch, but that is it. You have no more connection with the watchmaker. He has no more connection with the watch. Now, this speculative theory is refuted here in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, which says that Krishna creates the universe, but He also enters into it. So then someone might think, well, if He enters into the universe, say we imagine He is in the kingdom of God, then He enters into the universe. So then He is not in the kingdom of God anymore. But Krishna explains in these verses from the Bhagavad-gītā, and Vasudeva explains here in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, that in His original form, Krishna remains in Goloka Vrindavan, in the eternal spiritual kingdom. But in His expansion as Karanodakashayi Vishnu or Maha-Vishnu, He creates the universe or universes. Then in a further expansion as Garbhodakashayi Vishnu, He enters into each universe. And then in a further expansion as Kshirodakshayi Vishnu, He enters into the hearts of every living entity. Not only into the hearts of the living entities, but into every atom and into the space between the atoms. And so He is all-pervading. He is everywhere. He is everywhere in the material world. Now again, with our mundane minds and intelligence and so-called logic and reason, we might consider, well, if the Lord divides Himself and enters into the universes, and into the hearts of the living entities, and into the atoms, then He doesn’t exist.

It is just like say there are twenty people in this room, so I have a piece of paper and I divide it into twenty portions and I give each one a portion. So now each one has a little piece of the original paper, but the original paper does not exist any longer. So one might think, well okay if the Lord enters into every universe, then that original entity before being divided no longer exists. But that is not the case. This is the inconceivable power of the Lord that He continues to exist in His original form of Krishna, Govinda in the spiritual kingdom of God. But at the same time, He expands as Maha-Vishnu to create the different universes and as Garbhodakashayi Vishnu within each universe to regulate the workings of the universe. And then within the hearts of the living entities so that He can be with them as their best friend and guide them and help them fulfill their desires. So this is inconceivable to mundane logic, but this is the eternal spiritual reality of the Lord. And this knowledge can be understood by those who approach the Lord in a submissive service attitude - sevonmukhe hi jihvādau. Otherwise, as Srila Prabhupada said, Krishna consciousness is an open secret. It is open to anyone and everyone. This book, anyone can buy this book, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and read it. But it is a secret because without serving the Lord and getting the Lord’s mercy, you won’t be able to appreciate it, you won’t be able to understand it, you won’t be able to follow it. So it is an open secret. And it is only by that service attitude that the Lord reveals Himself through the words of the Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, through the words of the saintly teachers.

This morning during the guru-puja, we were very inspired by Sanatana Govinda’s rendition of the Guru Vandana prayers. And he would repeat certain lines, and its repetition is so important. By repetition, we understand; first of all our minds wander, that is the first thing. So the first time he sings the words, we might not even hear them. We might be thinking about anything. So one line is divya-jñāna hṛde prakāśito, which he repeated. Divya-jñāna means spiritual knowledge, transcendental knowledge. Divya-jñāna hṛde means in the heart, prakāśito, manifests. The guru is the representative of Krishna. He does the work of Krishna, some of the work of Krishna. He does the work of Krishna in relation to guiding conditioned souls back to the Lord, back home, back to Godhead. So divya-jñāna hṛde prakāśito means the spiritual master manifests transcendental knowledge within the heart of the devotee. This is part of the process of revelation. Anyone can read the book, anyone can read the words on the page, but not understand it, not see how it relates to one’s life, to the world around us, or how to progress further. But that is revealed, divya-jñāna hṛde prakāśito.

So that comes from service. And we should always be busy in some sort of service. There are different types of service. Of course, Śravaṇam kīrtanam, the beginning is hearing and chanting. You chant what you have heard. You serve the Lord with your tongue by chanting, by repeating the messages of Godhead. But you cannot repeat or chant unless you have heard. So first is śravaṇam, hearing or reading. Reading also is in the same category, reading or hearing. Then you repeat. And the third item is smaraṇam, remembering the Lord. And it is natural, if you hear something and repeat it, then naturally you will remember it. And that is Krishna consciousness, śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇoḥ smaraṇaṁ. And then arcanaṁ, engaging in worship, vandanaṁ, offering prayers. Altogether, there are nine different processes, and they too can be further subdivided. And a pāda-sevanam, serving the lotus feet of the Lord. And serving the lotus feet of the Lord includes serving the devotees who have taken shelter at His lotus feet. So there are so many ways of doing service, so many ways of being engaged in Krishna consciousness. And somehow or other, we should organize our lives in such a way that twenty-four hours a day, from morning to night and again in the morning, we are engaged in some sort of service to God. It may be chanting, it might be reading, it might be cleaning the temple room floor, it might be making garlands, it might be going for distributing books, going for distributing prasāda, it might be keeping track of the accounts, paying the bills. So many services are required for the mission of the Lord. And we should be engaged twenty-four hours without deviation.

Srila Rupa Gosvami mentions six items that are favorable for devotional service, and he also mentions six items that are unfavorable, ṣaḍbhir bhaktir vinaśyati. In fact, he says they spoil one’s devotional service or destroy one’s devotional service. And one of them is prajalpaḥ, prajalpaḥ means idle talk, unnecessary talk, gossip, or any sort of unnecessary talk that is unrelated to Krishna and Krishna’s service. So ṣaḍbhir bhaktir vinaśyati, it destroys one’s devotional service. So we are talking about the tongue, engaging the tongue in the service of the Lord. The other side of it is we should not engage the tongue in prajalpaḥ, and any talk outside of the service of the Lord. That will spoil our devotional service. And we have so much to speak about the Lord, just unlimited. Just as the Lord is unlimited, there is unlimited subject of discussion in relation to the Lord. Srila Prabhupada’s spiritual master, our grand spiritual master, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura was very eager to publish transcendental literature and distribute transcendental literature. And he had many regular publications. He had one called Dainya-Nadia-Prakash. It was a daily newspaper. It had some news and then spiritual perspectives on the news and then just pure spiritual knowledge unrelated to the temporary events of the world. He had a weekly publication called The Gaudiya in Bengali. He had a weekly publication in English called The Harmonist. He had a weekly publication in Odia called The Bhagavat. He had a publication in Hindi. Regular publications, not just books, but regular daily or weekly publications.

So once, one of the leaders of India at the time, one of the intellectual leaders, and in those days, most of the leading people of India were inclined to Gandhi’s movement or the freedom movement to get political emancipation. Anyway, this person was a very prominent person. He had great regard for Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura. Almost all the luminaries of India at the time did. But he was astonished that, how could you have a daily newspaper dedicated to spiritual affairs? It is just like, what is there to say? I mean, how could you fill up a paper every day? And Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati replied that the whole material world, according to the Bhagavad-gītā, is one-fourth of the kingdom of God. So already three-fourths is beyond the material world. And within these three-quarters, there are so many universes. And within each universe, there are so many planets. And within our universe, this earth is just one planet. And on this one planet, there are so many countries. And India is just one country. And in India, there are so many cities, and one of them is Calcutta. And in Calcutta, there are so many newspapers, even more than one edition. The same newspaper will have a morning edition and an afternoon edition. And this is just an insignificant speck in the creation of God. We have enough news from the spiritual world to publish a newspaper every minute. We could publish a newspaper every minute. But unfortunately, there are no customers. So that is the situation. We have enough to say about God and His names and forms and qualities and activities and associates and paraphernalia. We could go on speaking eternally and never come to the end of the Lord’s glories. So that is not a problem. There is always enough to speak about Krishna. Someone might say, well, don’t you get bored chanting the same mantra all the time? Don’t you get bored discussing the same topic every day? Well, no, because this is living. This is not dead material sound. This is living. This is Krishna. This is ever fresh.

It is described that the gopīs, all the residents of Vrindavan, out of their excessive love for Krishna and Krishna’s unparalleled beauty, it is described that whenever they would see Krishna, He looked more beautiful than the last time, and they thought they had never seen Him before. They would be looking at Him, and He would be so beautiful, more beautiful than they had ever seen before. They think, “Who is this?” It is like He is so. . . This is ever fresh. Krishna’s ever fresh, revealing Himself in ever new ways. And He is unlimited, so He can reveal Himself in unlimited ways. So there is no question of anything in Krishna consciousness becoming old or stale or hackneyed or stereotyped. It is always fresh and dynamic. So we can engage our minds, our intelligence, our senses, our total beings fully in Krishna’s service from morning to night, twenty-four hours, without any cessation, without any lack of engagement, and without any lack of new interest. Krishna is ever fresh, and as we serve Him, He reveals Himself in newer ways.

So we thank you for coming and listening. We have a few more minutes. So if any of you would like to make any comment, add any comment, or ask any questions, you can do so now. Hare Krishna. Yes Rupanuga Prabhu.

Devotee: Hare Krishna. Yesterday, you were speaking about your having gone to Mumbai, I believe, and [Unintelligible 01:11:31] and you said that there was this one young man of a wealthy family who pledged a lot of money for building the temple. He chose the most expensive part of the project.  I was wandering as I was listening to your lecture on our archives, but it went only through 8:30, and I just wondered if you could say what happened this young man. Did he actually complete that pledge? Did he actually make that contribution? And was he a significant person in getting that temple built?

Giriraj Swami: Yes. I was referring to Ashok Birla, who is the son of Gopikumari Birla, and the grandson of R D Birla, one of the four rich, well known Birla brothers. And he did commit himself to paying for the temple. Means, the temple, there are many structures in the Vrindavan temple complex. And he followed through on it. He completed the entire pledge, and it was by far the largest donation that anyone had given at that time. Yes.

Devotee: One more part of that. You said that you had developed a relationship, and earlier, he appeared to be somewhat taken away by the influence of the West. And I am just wondering about it. Could you detect when you were developing that relationship, could you tell when he began to become more and more devotional to the point that he was willing and able to make that kind of contribution?

Giriraj Swami: Well, he liked us. I never made the connection before, but right now, I think he was a little like George Harrison, in the sense that he wasn’t satisfied with the stereotyped conventional ways of thinking or living. I wouldn’t even say he was carried away by Western ways, but he just didn’t stick to the family’s traditional way of dressing and speaking and acting, and so on. But from the beginning, he liked us. He was very frank, and we were too, and he liked that. In some Oriental cultures, I mean, every culture, there is sort of a good side and a bad side. So in Oriental cultures, it is very good that they are very careful not to offend people, not to say anything that would hurt someone, and they are very respectful of elders. They have a sort of higher or hierarchical conception. So all that is very good. But it can become a little rigid and stereotyped.

Also Vedic culture is meant to support Krishna consciousness. So with Krishna consciousness, Vedic culture is wonderful. But if you remove life, if you take the Krishna consciousness out of it, then you just have the shell, it can seem sort of stereotyped and restrictive and so on. And, other than Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura and Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati and our Srila Prabhupada, who are really giving pure Krishna consciousness, śuddha-bhakti, basically what you had in India was either just material, I mean, in the Vedic culture, it can be material, or some mixture of devotion with fruitive work or mental speculations. So they really had the ability to infuse life into Vedic culture. So he just was not satisfied with that sort of stereotyped Hindu culture, and he liked us, and we liked him. Now, I couldn’t have guessed that he would give such a big amount, but it did occur to me, he likes us, we like him, and we are straightforward with him, and he is straightforward with us. He certainly has the resources. He might just do it. And he did. He did. Hare Krishna. Yes, Mishra Bhagavan.

Devotee: Krishna says in Bhagavad-gītā that if one performs devotional service, [Unintelligible 01:18:05]

Giriraj Swami: As He says, there is no loss or diminution.

Devotee: [Unintelligible 01:18:20]

Giriraj Swami: Well, once you begin the process of devotional service, the Lord takes special interest in you, and He never forgets whatever service you have done, and He is always looking for a chance to bring you back. He is in your heart, and in the case of ordinary living entities, He just fulfills their desires. He doesn’t interfere with their minute independence. And even with devotees, He doesn’t interfere with their minute independence, but He sees that they want to serve Him, so He takes special interest to help them. Now, it may happen that someone begins to engage in devotional service and then he becomes distracted or diverted and wants to forget Krishna. It is a very interesting verse in the Bhagavad-gītā in which Lord Krishna says, sarvasya cāhaṁ hṛdi sanniviṣṭo, that, “I am situated in the hearts of every living entity. mattaḥ smṛtir jñānam apohanaṁ ca, from Me come knowledge, remembrance and forgetfulness.” So yes, we can understand that God is in our heart. He gives us knowledge. We have been discussing, divya-jñāna hṛde prakāśito, Dadāmi buddhi-yogaṁ taṁ yena mām upayānti te. He gives us memory. But what about forgetfulness? So Srila Prabhupada explains that according to our desire, if we want to remember the Lord, remember our relationship with the Lord, He will help us. But He helps everyone whatever their desire is. He is such a kind well-wisher. So if you want to forget Him, He will also help you. All these atheists who are coming out with so many theories, “God is dead,” “There is no God,” “I am God,” “You are God,” “Everyone is God.” That intelligence to come up with all these atheistic theories is coming from God.

This, I think his name is Dawkins or something, he wrote a book called “The God Delusion.” Now, that intelligence, crooked intelligence, that crooked intelligence is coming from God. Without God, he wouldn’t be able to think of all these crazy ideas. Without God, he wouldn’t be able to articulate his thoughts. Without God, he wouldn’t be able to exist in this body. He wouldn’t be able to breathe one breath. So he is dependent on God, and so God is helping him according to his desire. So a devotee begins with the desire to remember God, but as we discussed, we come in the material world with the desire to forget God. That is why we are here. If we didn’t have the desire to forget God, we wouldn’t be in the material world. We would be in the spiritual world with God. So we came here with the desire to forget him, but by good fortune, we have come into the association of devotees and developed some faith and awaken a desire to revive our lost relationship with God, in other words to remember our forgotten relationship with God. But because we are just recovering from a diseased condition, we might have a relapse. After class two days ago, we mentioned the verse from the Seventh canto that even if someone has a very strong boat and a good captain, still the boat might sink and he might drown. And I gave an example of the Titanic. So after the discussion, one devotee approached me and told me a story that he had heard about a man who was on the Titanic and who was an alcoholic. And at that dire moment when he was faced with imminent death, he called out to the Lord. If you save me from this situation, I will give up drinking forever. And he was saved, he was one of the few who was saved, and he gave up drinking.

Then many years passed and he fell back into his old habit of drinking. So he was in a pub in England and he got totally drunk to the point that when he came out of the pub, he couldn’t keep his balance, he couldn’t stand on two legs, and he fell down into a little pool of water and he drowned in that pool of water outside the pub. So under certain circumstances, we remember the Lord. We want to do something for Him, even if we have some ulterior motive. But still, we have the idea to approach the Lord and do something good for Him or give up something bad that we have been doing. But then we have a relapse and we want to forget Him. Mattaḥ smṛtir jñānam apohanaṁ ca. We want to remember Him, the Lord in the heart helps us. If we want to forget Him, the Lord also helps us. But that person, I wouldn’t call a devotee. He was just a human being. He was in one of those categories that could become a devotee because he had some faith in God, and in distress, he prayed to the Lord for relief, and the Lord helped him. But he had a relapse. Now, once one actually engages sincerely in devotional service, even if he has a relapse and wants to forget the Lord, it is very hard to enjoy sense gratification when you are conscious of your spiritual identity as an eternal servant of God. So that is why people want to forget God, so they can enjoy, try to enjoy. So this idea, I am great now, I am finished with all that. Well, he may say he is finished with it, but he is not. He is trying to forget, but he can’t forget. And there are many verses in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam that explain that if someone begins the process of devotional service, even if he falls away for some time, he will be unable to forget the happiness he relished in Krishna consciousness, and eventually, he will want to come back, and the Lord will keep track of him. And in some time, maybe not in this life, we hope in this life, maybe not in this life, maybe in the next life or some life thereafter, he will come back.

One example is Bilva Mangal Thakura. Bilva Mangal Thakura was very advanced in devotional service, but somehow, he fell down, and that was in his previous life. Then he took birth in a good brahman family as Bilva Mangal Thakura, and he was in a very wealthy family. And wealth again, it can be an advantage in Krishna consciousness because you don’t have to struggle to survive, so you have the facility to engage in Krishna consciousness. But wealth can also be a disadvantage because you can use your wealth to indulge in debauchery, and you have the means to do it. You don’t even have to work; you can just keep indulging yourself. So Bilva Mangal Thakura was born into a very wealthy family, and he was indulging himself, and he became very attached to a prostitute named Cintāmaṇi. And it is a long story, but one night he had a desire to be with Cintāmaṇi, and those prostitutes in that context of Vedic civilization, it wasn’t just like you go in and have sex and come out, but there is a whole thing. They had a nice house and apartment, and there would be nice food and beverages and conversation. It would be a whole evening. So it was a terribly stormy night, the downpours of rain, lightning, thunder, and so the prostitute assumed he is not going to come tonight, so she locked the gate and locked all the doors and everything. But he was so determined, he is so intent. To get to her house, he had to cross a raging river. So such a downpour of rain, swift current, and he saw a log. He said, “Okay, let me catch hold of this log. I will use the log to swim across.” So he caught hold of it, it turned out to be a dead body, but still, he was so intent, he used that floating dead body to get across. Then, walked through the muddy paths, got to her house, saw the gate was locked, there was a compound wall, and he saw a rope. He used the rope and climbed over the wall. He tried to get her attention, but there was so much noise, and she had closed all the shutters and everything. So he took the rope, and it turned out to be a snake, but still, he is so determined, he caught hold of the snake, he used it as a rope. Eventually, got that to the house, and so she let him in, and she said, “I didn’t expect you tonight.” And then she said, “If you had as much attachment and eagerness for Krishna as you have for me, it would be a lot better for you.” And those words somehow awakened his sense of devotional service from his previous life, and he had a complete change of heart, and he decided to leave his former ways, leave his home, go to Vrindavan and dedicate his life to Krishna, which is what he did.

So it is said that Cintāmaṇi, the prostitute, that his spiritual master from his past, from his previous life, entered into the body of Cintāmaṇi and spoke those words to him. And in the same song, Guru Vandana prayer we sang, cakṣu-dāna dila yei, janme janme prabhu sei, that he who has opened my eyes with transcendental knowledge is my Lord birth after birth. So it doesn’t end at the end of this body, the relationship continues. So it is said that his spiritual master spoke through the mouth of the prostitute, and those words at that time, under those circumstances, reawakened his sense of Krishna consciousness, and he left everything and went to Vrindavan and became a great devotee, became a perfect devotee. So Krishna, between Krishna and the spiritual master, they will find some way. Might take time because the person is in the mood of forgetting, but when the time comes, they will help them to remember. Hare Krishna.

Thank you very much. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. Hare Krishna.