SB 2.3.17 – Inaugurating the Bhakti-vriksha at Naimisaranya Dasa and Sri-gopika Dasi’s Home

Giriraj Swami:

TEXT 17 (ŚB 2.3.17)

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.

COMMENT

So, to help you focus on what you are reading and what Srila Prabhupada is saying, every so often, I’m going to ask you what you just read. I didn’t warn you before I began. So, it might be a little difficult for some of you to recall what we just read, but who can say something about what we just read?

Devotee: That we should use our time effectively for seeking the truth, the Absolute Truth.

Giriraj Swami: Yeah. I’m going to read it again, just a few sentences, and then I’m going to ask again.

PURPORT (continued)

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.

COMMENT

So, we come to the human form of life, the soul, after transmigrating through many species. There are eight million four hundred thousand species of life, of which four hundred thousand are varieties of human species, which includes demigods on the higher planets. So, after eight million species of life have come to this human form of life, and the human form is very significant because in human life, we can realize who we are and who is God and what is our relationship with God and what is the purpose of life.

And in this sentence, Srila Prabhupada says that when we become aware of how our duration of life is being shortened by every rising and setting of the sun, we should accelerate our devotional service. We should pick it up, we should go faster. So, I’ll read that, there is so much in just that one sentence.

PURPORT (continued)

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.

COMMENT

This is a common saying, but it’s profoundly true. Time doesn’t wait for anyone, and the tide doesn’t wait for anyone. If the high tide is coming in and you want to remain low, it doesn’t wait for you.

PURPORT (continued)

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.

COMMENT

So, for most people, I mean, that’s why the verse says of everyone, practically everyone, except those who utilize the time for Krishna consciousness, but otherwise, for most people, the time is uselessly wasted outside of spiritual values or Krishna consciousness.

PURPORT (continued)

Even a fraction of the duration of life wasted cannot be compensated by any amount of gold.

COMMENT

In other words, at the time of death, if you want to get one moment extra, even by paying any amount of money or gold, you cannot buy an extra moment. That means you cannot put a price tag on even one moment, because you can’t buy back one moment lost, wasted uselessly without Krishna consciousness. You can’t buy an extra moment at the time of death, no matter how much money you spend. So, every moment is incalculably valuable. You can’t calculate how much value it has because there is no price that you can pay for it.

Srila Prabhupada had a friend in Bombay named Brij Ratan Mohatta. Mr. Mohatta was a rich businessman, industrialists. In fact, before the partition of India and Pakistan, he was the wealthiest man in what became west Pakistan. I visited there a number of times, and his home, which is called Mohatta-house, he was a resident of Mohamad Ali Jinnah, it’s beautiful. There are so many things. He was married to the daughter of RD Birla, the richest family in India, one of the richest. So, he was a very wealthy man. And Srila Prabhupada was very expert at speaking to people in terms of their mentality.

He had a friend named Dr. Patel who would often accompany him on his morning walks. So, he would often use medical terms. So, Mr. Mohatta was a businessman, and Srila Prabhupada used business examples on him. And he said, “If you take the ledger of your life, any time spent in Krishna consciousness is profit, and any time spent without Krishna consciousness is loss.

So, of course, everyone wants to maximize their profits and minimize their losses. And so, that’s exactly what this verse is saying. And so, we have to be very mindful of how we spend our time. And it’s very easy to waste time. I guess it’s always been easy because there are so many distractions like movies and so on, but now, you can very conveniently waste time in the comfort of your own home with your smartphone and your computer. It’s just unlimited ways that you can waste. And it’s not embarrassing, going out to a movie or a concert or a sport event where nobody could see you. It is very easy to waste your life, waste the time which your life is made of. So, we should be careful about that.

PURPORT (continued)

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.

COMMENT

So, everyone wants to be happy, but they don’t know how to get permanent happiness. The happiness that we experience in material life, it’s not even really happiness but it’s more a sensation of relief from misery. So, I don’t know if I read it, but there was a story about a monk living in a monastery. And it was very austere, very cold. So, he would dangle his toes outside of the cover and pull the cover so his toes were exposed to the cold. And then, when he brought his toes back under the cover, they felt so good. So, that was his happiness. So, it’s not really positive happiness, it’s more of a relief from suffering, and a lot of material so-called happiness is that.

But even apart from the quality of the happiness, there is the question of the duration of the happiness. And we want permanent happiness and we are searching for that. Most people don’t know where to find it, but that’s what everyone wants, permanent happiness.

PURPORT (continued)

A living being, especially the human being, is seeking happiness because happiness is the natural situation of the living entity.

COMMENT

So, the living entity, that’s us, the spirit soul, mamaivāṁśo jīva-loke jīva-bhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ, the living entities are eternally fragmental parts and parcel of Krishna. So, Krishna is sac-cid-ānanda; eternal, full of knowledge, and full of bliss. And therefore, the living entity, by nature, is eternal, full of knowledge, and full of bliss. But when the living entity is covered by the material body and identifies with it, then he experiences the opposite because the body is asat—temporary, acit—full of ignorance, and nirānanda—full of misery. But by nature, we are sac-cid-ānanda like Krishna.

PURPORT (continued)

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.

COMMENT

The word spiritual means that we can be happy in the spiritual atmosphere, not in the material atmosphere. People are vainly seeking happiness in the material atmosphere out of ignorance, and they are frustrated. They haven’t realized their spiritual identities; they haven’t found the source of pure happiness. They are just frustrated and angry and miserable.

PURPORT (continued)

A living being is constitutionally a spiritual spark of the complete whole, and his happiness can be perfectly perceived in spiritual activities.

COMMENT

So, sometimes Srila Prabhupada would give the example of a fish out of water. A fish is naturally happy in the water. If you take the fish out of water, even if you put it in a golden bowl and fill the bowl with precious gems, the fish will not be happy because it is a creature of the water. So, we are the creatures of the spirit, we need to be in the spiritual atmosphere. In the material atmosphere, no matter how much opulence we are surrounded by, we are still miserable. Unless we engage in spiritual activities.

PURPORT (continued)

A living being is constitutionally a spiritual spark of the complete whole, and his happiness can be perfectly perceived in spiritual activities.

COMMENT

What are some examples of spiritual activities?

Devotee: śravaṇam kīrtanam.

Giriraj Swami: Yeah, good. śravaṇam kīrtanam; hearing and chanting about Krishna, exactly what the verse says. We begin with śravaṇam kīrtanam, and then smaraṇam, remembering. If we chant and hear, we will remember Krishna.

PURPORT (continued)

The Lord is the complete spirit whole, and His name, form, quality, pastimes, entourage and personality are all identical with Him.

COMMENT

This is a very important point, that the Lord, being absolute; His name, His form, His qualities, activities, everything related to Him is identical with Him. And therefore, Srila Prabhupada made that point specifically about the holy name. Just remember Him; the form, the Deity, the talks about Him, they all are Krishna.

By coming to the holy names, Srila Prabhupada said that in the material world, the relative world, the name of a thing and the thing are different. So, say you are in the desert and you chant, “Water, water, water, water.” So, chanting, “Water, water” won’t quench your thirst because the word water and the substance water are different. And in the absolute realm or spiritual realm, the name of a thing and the thing are the same. So, if we chant, “Krishna, Krishna, Hare Krishna,” Krishna is personally present, dancing on our tongue. So, we can come in touch with Krishna by chanting and hearing about Him.

PURPORT (continued)

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.

COMMENT

Open the door. That’s the main thing, to open the door.

PURPORT (continued)

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.”

COMMENT

So, someone might appreciate the value of Krishna consciousness but question his or her ability to complete the whole process. And they think enrolling in a certain course would be very beneficial, but if one’s not able to complete the course, then what’s the use of it? But the Bhagavad-gītā says that even a little advancement on the path is never lost. And just like materially, whatever you achieve in this life is lost at the time of death. For example, you might have a great linguist that knows eight different languages, but after you die, all that is lost and you start the next life as a baby with nothing, gagaga (baby sounds), you don’t know any words. You don’t even know one word in one language, it’s all lost.

But spiritually, whatever progress you make stays with you into the next life. That’s very encouraging. And Srila Prabhupada says even if you progress only 1 percent in this life, in the next life, you start from 2 percent. So, there is no loss or diminish, and even a little advancement could save one from the most dangerous type of fear. So, we should not hesitate.

PURPORT (continued)

As a highly potent drug

COMMENT

Now, Srila Prabhupada says that a drug can mean medicine or intoxicant. Prabhupada is talking about medicine.

PURPORT (continued)

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. . .

COMMENT

That’s A-U-R-A-L. There are two words pronounced the same—A-U-R-A-L and O-R-A-L. What does A-U-R-A-L mean?

Devotee: By ear.

Giriraj Swami: By ear. And O-R-A-L?

Devotee: By mouth.

PURPORT (continued)

Aural realization of the transcendental messages implies total realization, just as fructification of one part of a tree implies fructification of all other parts.

COMMENT

In other words, Srila Prabhupada isn’t saying that in so many words but he and other acaryas have said as much, that if you realize the name, then from that, you realize the form, the quality, the pastimes, all the other features of the Absolute Truth. So, even if you begin with just one sense of the ear, from that, you get full realization.

PURPORT (continued)

This realization for a moment in the association of pure devotees like Śukadeva Gosvāmī prepares one’s complete life for eternity.

COMMENT

So, here, Srila Prabhupada weaves a beautiful net, a web to really bring us to the point of this verse and really convince us, to capture us.

PURPORT (continued)

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.

COMMENT

So, these miseries, in the Bhagavad-gītā, Krishna gives the definition of knowledge, and one of the elements of knowledge is janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam, to be aware, mindful, of the miseries of the repetition of birth, death, old age, and disease. So, that’s part of knowledge. And at the end of the description, Krishna says anything else is ignorance. So, if you are not mindful of the repetition of the miseries, birth, death, old age, and disease, the miseries. So, we should be mindful of these, we should be aware of our precarious position.

Just today, unfortunately, one of our godbrothers, one of Srila Prabhupada’s disciples in Alachua, Florida, died in a motorcycle accident. Like Prabhupada said, trust no future, we can’t be assured. Maharaja Parīkṣit heard Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam when he had seven days to live. He asked, “What is the duty of a person who is about to die?” A very important question. But he spent his last seven days hearing Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. But as Srila Prabhupada said, he knew he had  seven days, we don’t know, we  may have seven minutes. We are hopeful, well of course we all hope but  we don’t know. So, we should utilize that time like Maharaja Parīkṣit through uttama-śloka-vārtayā, the topics of the all-good Personality of Godhead.

PURPORT (continued)

The materialistic way of pious activities like charity is recommended in the smṛti-śāstras as quoted by Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura. Money given in charity to a suitable person is guaranteed bank balance in the next life.

COMMENT

So, if you give in charity to a suitable person, what you give is returned in your next life, and the degree to which it’s returned depends on the quality of the recipient of the charity.

PURPORT (continued)

Such charity is recommended to be given to a brāhmaṇa.

COMMENT

As I read this, you may get the idea that you could do very well by giving in charity to Nityananda Prabhu. It’s really just a coincidence that he is sitting here.

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.

COMMENT

So, everyone’s looking for a good investment. When you give to a half educated brahman, it comes back double.

PURPORT (continued)

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.

COMMENT

So, the goal of the Vedas is Krishna. In Bhagavad-gītā, the Lord says, vedaiś ca sarvair aham eva vedyo, that by all the Vedas, He has to be known. So, if we give to someone who has realized Krishna, the money is returned by unlimited multiplication, which means that you’ll be promoted to the spiritual world because nothing in the material world is unlimited. There is a very nice story about Srila Prabhupada, which he related to me, but I got a hint of it in advance because it was reported in Times magazine. So, Times magazine has different sections. So, one section is called People. And in this section, they ran an item, as I recall, it began, “There is trouble stirring in nirvana.”

When Swami Bhaktivedanta, the leader of the Hare Krishna movement, was asked about Guru Maharaja Ji, he replied, “Anyone who says that He is God is dog and he is cheating people. And when he meets Krishna, he will realize that Krishna is an even greater thief than he is, and Krishna will take everything away from him.” And actually, that happened. I mean, I don’t need to go into those details, but it did happen that he lost everything.

So, anyway, this came out of a meeting with the press that Srila Prabhupada had in Hong Kong, the penthouse suite of the most expensive hotel in Hong Kong. So, the devotees led by Bhurijana Prabhu, he was in charge of the yatra, had arranged to pick him up from the airport in a Rolls-Royce limousine, and brought him to the penthouse suite of the most expensive hotel, the Hilton, for the press conference.

So, one of the reporters asked Srila Prabhupada, “You are supposed to be a spiritual person. Why were you riding in a Rolls-Royce car?” And Srila Prabhupada replied, “Yeah, that’s a good question. I am actually the resident of the spiritual world, and in the spiritual world, everything is made of spiritual gems, which are far more precious than any gem of the material world. So, even if they had picked me up in a solid gold Rolls-Royce or a diamond Rolls-Royce, it wouldn’t have been good enough. So, you are asking why I rode in that Rolls-Royce? Well, the answer is because it is the best they could do.”

Now, I’m relating that to this verse because the return of the money given in charity to the veda-pāraga , a pure devotee, one who is realized, is returned in unlimited multiplication, it means it can’t be returned in the material world because it can be given in the spiritual world where everything is made of the spiritual realm. So then, when Prabhupada came back to Juhu from Hong Kong, he told me the story of what they had asked him and how he had replied, and then he added at the end, “Well, what can you say to such envious people?”

PURPORT (continued)

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.

COMMENT

So, it is quite a brilliant mention here that Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura and Srila Prabhupada has written, that just as if you give in charity there is guaranteed return in the next life, so, similarly, if you engage in chanting and hearing about Krishna, you will be promoted to the spiritual world.

PURPORT (continued)

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, in the beginning, Srila Prabhupada said that we should accelerate our devotional service. So, the disease and old age the devotees suffer can serve as impetus for them to accelerate or intensify their devotional service, which will move them along more quickly on the path of spiritual life, back home, back to Godhead. So, devotees don’t reject things as bad because they see that everything can be good if accepted in the proper spirit, as the impetus to go back home, back to Godhead.

So, the devotees don’t blame the Lord for any circumstantial reversal, but rather, they may see that the Lord is making an arrangement to help them come back to Him more quickly. Maharaja Parīkṣit himself, he was cursed to die in seven days, but that curse was actually a blessing because he could give up everything and sit down on the banks of the Ganges and read Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam.

So, just to give an example, I mean, I heard there is a version of it in the Vedic tradition, but I heard it told by one of Srila Prabhupada’s disciples in relation to a Chinese farmer. So, there was a wise Chinese farmer, and he had two horses. So, one of his horses escaped and ran into the forest. So, all the neighbors came and said, “Oh! How terrible, you only had two horses and one of them ran away.” The wise Chinese said, “Maybe yes, maybe no.”

So then, the farmer’s son went out into the forest to find that horse. He didn’t find that horse but he came back with two other horses. So, all the neighbors said, “Oh! How wonderful, you lost one horse but you got two more horses.” And the wise Chinese farmer said, “Maybe yes, maybe no.”

So, one of those horses was a little wild, and while the son was trying to break him in, the horse threw him and he broke his arms and legs. And then the neighbors came and said, “Oh! How terrible.” And the farmer said, “Maybe yes, maybe no.”

So then, the king’s men came to recruit the farmer’s son into the army to go to battle, but because he had his arms and legs broken, they couldn’t take him. So, all the neighbors said, “Oh! How wonderful, your son escaped the military service.” And he said, “Maybe yes, maybe no.”

In this way, it was going on. So, we can’t really predict what is good and what is bad because we don’t know what the result will be. And therefore, Srila Prabhupada said, sarva-dharmān parityajya mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja, you should just surrender to Krishna and let Krishna make the plan. He said that the householder is praying to God, “Please keep my house safe,” and the thief is praying to God, “Please let me be successful in robbing the house.” So, Krishna is perplexed. He has to fulfill everyone’s desires, and they’re contradictory, so Krishna is perplexed. So, we should not put Krishna into perplexity by making our own plans, but just surrender to Krishna and to Krishna’s plan. Hare Krishna.

Devotees: Hare Krishna.

Giriraj Swami: Do you want to say anything?

Nityananda Prabhu: After hearing Maharaja speak, I can assure you who the real veda-pāraga is, he is sitting next to me, he is the one, not me. So, he is the one that the donation should actually go to because it’s by his shelter that we are actually able to do so many things, as far as our temple is concerned, our lives are concerned. And in my personal life, when my spiritual master left his body, … because Krishna has His plan. I was very fortunate that Giriraj Maharaja chose to spend more time in Dallas. Prior to that, we did have his association, but not as much as after Gurudev had left. And after him, it’s amazing how one thinks that one gets so many realizations from one’s own spiritual master.

When the spiritual master comes back the second time in the form of another spiritual master, the realizations come in much stronger and thicker. And so, because we are starting bhakti-vriksha today, I thought that I would encourage you to take guidance from Giriraj Maharaja. And particularly, one thing that I have gained from that myself is a lot of happiness. And as Maharaja said and as it is said in the scriptures, happiness is natural to the soul. The only problem is our false ego has its own idea of what happiness is and it gets in the way of real happiness.

As Krishna says in the Fifteenth Chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā,

yo mām evam asammūḍho

jānāti puruṣottamam

sa sarva-vid bhajati māṁ

sarva-bhāvena bhārata

Whoever knows Krishna as the Supreme Personality of Godhead without doubting is the knower of everything, if such a person engages in Krishna’s devotional service fully with all of his heart and soul. And we see that in the example of Maharaja, how everything he does in his life is with full heartedness in Krishna, having this full confidence. And Guru Maharaja many times actually repeated this, “Are you convinced that Krishna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead?” Because once we become convinced, then we can become very happy, we become joyful. Srila Prabhupada also told us that if you are not joyful, then you are not a devotee. That can be a pretty complex statement in the material world where there is so much misery.

But actually, it is the fact that once we understand the extent of Krishna’s greatness, the extent of His beauty, the extent of His life, the extent of the happiness that He feels when we decide to live our lives with Him fully, we actually become truly happy, which we realize just like for business people, business examples are the best, and for medical people, medical examples are the best.

But generally speaking, in this world, most people consider money to be the most important thing in their life. It’s about how much money do I have in my bank account so that I can live a normal life, a life that is a happy life. But imagine that our father was the richest man in the world. At this time, Jeff Bezos is considered the richest man.

So, the children of Jeff Bezos. . . And typically, the Lord, since He has one on one relationship with us, mentions He has only one son. That son will not have financial problems. Any issues that the son has financially are non-issues. So, the son is always very happy when it comes to money. There is no issue with money. He is always very happy. So, similarly, we become very happy knowing that Krishna is our eternal father, and for us, the great advantage is that the father has come in the form of the spiritual master. The father has come in the form of the spiritual master who represents his spiritual master.

If someone sneezes twice, you should know that that is the truth. It’s actually a fact.

As those of us who are at Bhakti-vriksha are encouraging others to become Krishna conscious, it is very important for us to be very happy that we are fortunate that we’ve come to know about Krishna and to share Krishna with others. But at the same time, be very humble, understanding that it is not that we did something that allowed us to become fully Krishna conscious, it is actually Krishna’s love. He chose us to give us His love, and therefore, we became devotees. He can choose anybody.

So, we pray to Krishna that He will choose others as well who will come and join us so that we can actually all in the association of one another chant the holy names of Krishna with all of our hearts and souls. But this is the easiest method of chanting Krishna. Doing kirtan, as we see, when Mother Veda Priya was chanting, I noticed that everybody was so happy. It’s so easy to chant in the presence of a person who is a wonderful kīrtanīyā and in the presence of other devotees.

It is also very easy to read Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam. So, keep it simple, keep it quick; the chanting, the reading. And of course, most people find that the most relishable part of any program is the prasāda. Everybody looks forward to the time when they can have some nice prasāda. So, make sure you make some really good plate of prasādam with a lot of love and devotion and offer it with a lot of love and devotion to the spiritual master and to Krishna on the altar. That prasāda will turn into a miracle. Miracles happen when people eat prasādam, miracles happen when they hear the holy names, miracles happen when they read, and the biggest miracles happen coming into the association of devotees.

So, these are our ways of reaching out. In the process, I think there are three other things that I would advise. One is, be very compassionate. Don’t be too judgmental on those who join us. Why are you not chanting nicely? We should chant our rounds nicely, then others will automatically come to the process. We encourage them but don’t judge them. So, be compassionate.

Also, be very tolerant because sometimes it takes a while for the bhakti-vriksha to grow. People ask the question, “Why are people not joining?” It’s Krishna wanting us to be tolerant, and if we are tolerant, and especially when they come and they don’t come back again, we feel really insulted or something, understand this tolerance is very important because what tolerance teaches us is that we can become convinced about Krishna. We’ll have full conviction because it is Krishna who is doing everything. If we are fully convinced like that, then we can be tolerant.

And finally, Krishna says that the best quality of the devotee is steadiness. Be steady, continue through the successes and the lack of successes that we go through in our lives. Stay steady in our Krishna consciousness. If we are steady, that is what pleases Krishna the most.

So, these are the qualities with which we work and we serve in our bhakti-vriksha’s, and any service, but in particular, the bhakti-vriksha’s, because many newcomers can’t come to our bhakti-vrikshas like that. They are now encouraged. Everything is going to work out very nicely.

We can see that at some point in our lives, we thought, Well, in the United States, there are not so many devotees being made. In India, so many devotees are being made, but in the United States, not so many. But because we stayed steady, we stayed convinced, we continued with the shelter of wonderful senior devotees like Giriraj Maharaja, now the US is actually taking off. I’ll tell you some things that I know about what’s happening with ISKCON in the Hare Krishna movement. [Unintelligible 01:52:25]. Amazing things are happening now up there.

Devotees are becoming very encouraged, becoming very bold. It’s something we lost for a while. We didn’t take so many risks. We became satisfied with our own Krishna consciousness. We cannot be satisfied with our Krishna consciousness until everybody has become Krishna conscious. Just like in our families, if we have many children, if one of those children is not happy, the family is not going to be a happy family. So, how can Krishna be happy if any of His children are not happy? So, it is our role to actually reach out like that, and as we reach out, it won’t take very long.

I feel very confident knowing what I see with our children, those of us who have children and what’s happening to their Krishna consciousness, hearing them lead kirtan, as we saw at the kirtan 50 program, I feel very confident that our children will do even better than we did in terms of reaching out to more people and more people. It’s because of the hard work that was done by the first generation of devotees. So, really, we are on a great trajectory here. Be very confident, be very happy, just reach out to simple things like chanting, reading, prasādam, associating with devotees, and most importantly, reaching out by preaching to others. I know preaching is not considered a very nice word these days. I like to be teaching, reaching out with love and affection. Preaching done the right way is always very-very highly accepted by everybody. Reach out. We are a preaching movement. It’s not just about our Krishna consciousness, it is about the Krishna consciousness.

So, again, I thank Maharaja for speaking and coming here. Just by his coming here, our lives become successful. It’s said if you have the darshan or the association of a pure devotee for even a moment or even a part of a moment, all success is bound to come in our lives. The only thing that stops us after that is our own desires. Whether we desire that Krishna consciousness is all that Krishna conscious, do we truly want it ? Do we really pray for it? Just like a child prays for toys, he wants to pray. Do we have that type of yearning in our lives? If we have that yearning and we surrender to the process, then we’ll become absorbed in Krishna consciousness.

Like Prabhupada said, “Chant and be happy.” When I speak, stay and be happy, be surrendered, be absorbed in Krishna consciousness, and yearn for Krishna, yearn for the Krishna consciousness, then we will be happy. Everything will work out very nicely. Here we have many of you with me to programs, but one day, this house will be filled by all new faces, and I hope, I sincerely hope that each and every one of you will follow this process in your home and do the same thing and fill your homes with a lot of new faces and let them fill their homes with many new faces, so that everybody can be happy. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. [applause]

Would you like to ask any question of Maharaja?

Devotee: Thank you, Maharaja, for the wonderful class. I have a question on the charity thing that we discussed that it will come returned in the next birth. So, we see a lot of pure devotees who seem to have done a lot of austerity and devotional service in their previous birth, but still, they are very poor. So, how do we understand that?

Giriraj Swami: Well, just to clarify what the purport says, it does say it will be returned in the next birth, but it doesn’t mean that all of it will be returned in the next life. It could be returned or it could not be returned in the next life. Somehow, this one example came to my mind, but we had a friend in Bombay named Dr, Desai, and his father was a very rich industrialist, a very successful businessman, and he died suddenly in Malaysia or somewhere. And so, the talk was that his son was very simple when it came to worldly dealings and he wouldn’t be able to maintain his father’s empire. Now, Dr. Desai became a devotee. And of course, this is not to say that you should engage in devotional service to become wealthy, or if you are afraid that if you engage in devotional service, you become poor, I’m telling this to compromise that concern.

So, Dr. Desai, he multiplied his father’s business. It was almost like he was empowered by Krishna. He began a tube light industry and he put billboards around the city, and there was something about them, which was so attractive and appealing. I thought This is not possible for a human being to just make something like that or it also occurred to me that maybe Krishna in the heart was inspiring people to buy his light bulbs because Dr. Desai was raising the money for Krishna consciousness. And once, I visited his home, it was seven in the morning. He was sitting cross legged on the sofa. He was sitting and chanting very intensely. And he said he gets, not that it’s his intention, but he gets many of his best ideas for his business while he is chanting every morning.

I mean, yeah, it’s like that. Generally, if people feel that by becoming Krishna conscious, they can also become more affluent, then it’s sort of an attraction for them. So, I would take advantage of that, I would invite a lot of people that I was cultivating to have dinner at Dr. Desai’s home, and they thought wow you lead a good life... But you see, there is a risk with wealth, and the risk is that you’ll forget Krishna. And if someone is sort of a weak devotee, he wants to serve Krishna but not really, then Krishna may take away his wealth so then he takes more shelter of the devotees and Krishna. Krishna says that yasyāham anugṛhṇāmi hariṣye tad-dhanaṁ śanaiḥ. So, Srila Prabhupada felt that that was happening in his own life, and he was a very successful businessman, and then things started going wrong, and then he started to think maybe Krishna is doing this to me.

He consulted some godbrothers and it seemed that Krishna was doing that to him. But that is Krishna’s mercy. As Srila Prabhupada said of himself, “First, Krishna tested me by taking everything away from me, and then Krishna tested me by giving me everything.” I mean, the opulence, look at it from that perscpective, the opulence that Srila Prabhupada had, it’s incomparable. He used to give the example of Jawaharlal Nehru. When he was living in England, he hired a British servant at a very high cost, prestige, and began paying him. And Srila Prabhupada said look I have so many American servants and I don’t pay them anything.  They pay me. So, there are examples in scripture that when Krishna favors someone, He takes away their opulence, or when He sees that they can handle the opulence and use it properly in Krishna’s service, then He gives them more.

So, that’s why sometimes. . . But we are not really. . .like Sudama Brahaman, you know the story. He was very poor, and he came to visit Krishna. He wasn’t hoping to get any wealth but he just wanted the religion. And then when he returned home, he found that his very meager dwelling and household  had completely transformed into a big palace with so many servants. Krishna didn’t say anything to him before he left. And Sudama, as a Brahaman, he was concerned that in his opulent position, he would forget the Lord. So, the Lord gave him the benediction that he would remain detached from the opulence and remain attached to Krishna. So, yeah, it didn’t happen, he didn’t forget Krishna.

Srila Prabhupada had a student who was translating his books into Hindi and the boy’s father came to visit Srila Prabhupada. And the boy’s father had a weakness that he couldn’t give up smoking, and Srila Prabhupada asked him, “Are you still smoking?” And he said, “Yes, I can’t give it up. Can’t I get some special mercy?” And Srila Prabhupada said, “Yes, there is special mercy.  Krishna says, yasyāham anugṛhṇāmi hariṣye tad-dhanaṁ śanaiḥ.. So, do you want special mercy?” He said, “No, no, Prabhupada, I’ll do it myself.” Yes?

Devotee: Maharaja, in the purport to one of the script, Srila Prabhupada says that even if we spend a little bit of our time on devotional service in our life, that never goes to waste. And Krishna also says that in Chapter Two, Text Forty. In other places, the example had been given that this material world is so powerful that if the mind goes here and there a little bit, then we’ll fall prey of this material world, and then we will fall down from our devotional service.

So now, these two are a little bit contradicting. So, one is that if you do a little bit, then you will save yourself from this material world. The other one says even though you spend the whole life in Krishna consciousness, but you just fall down for a moment, there is a chance that you will just get into this material world because if you are agitated by your senses, then the mind is agitated. So, how do we. . .?

Giriraj Swami: Well, we should be careful. I mean, yes, that’s there that the mind is very powerful if it becomes attached to some material object than the mind can get carried away bith the mind and the senses, but that will be temporary. Whereas the benefit you get from Krishna consciousness, even if it’s just beginning, is permanent. So, they are not really contradictory, it is a warning to us that our mind and senses go here and there without controlling them. But it’s also true that even in spite of that, if we are in the beginning, whatever progress we make will not be lost, we’ll be able to continue in the next life. 

There is one of my favorite’s statements from all of Srila Prabhupada’s scriptures, it comes in The Nectar of Instructions. There are six items that are favorable, utsāhān niścayād dhairyāt tat-tat-karma-pravartanāt. So, one of those is confidence. In the purport, Srila Prabhupada says that devotional service is so powerful and secure that having once begun, one will be forcibly dragged to ultimate success. So, it’s like that, [Unintelligible 02:11:37]. So, we should just do it. Yes, sir?

Devotee: I have a question from the purport, Maharaja. It says, “Just as fructification of one part of a tree implies fructification of all other parts.” What does it mean?

Giriraj Swami: Do you know what fructify means?

Devotee: Like fructify…

Giriraj Swami: Yeah. So, say there is a big tree, and you can’t really see way up at the top, but you see there is some fruit on the lower part. So, that suggests that there is food everywhere on the tree. Is that okay?

Devotee: So, what does it imply?

Giriraj Swami: It implies that if you realize one part of Krishna, you realize all of Krishna. When you realize His holy name, you realize His form, His qualities, His pastimes. Okay?