Rath-yatra—Questions and Answers

Devotee: Why some devotees also have problems in this material life? Some devotees they go through a lot of problems, body related problems. Why do they get that? Can Krishna help them to overcome? Can Krishna do pain-free life for all devotees?

Giriraj Swami: As long as we have the body, there will be miseries. Krishna says in Bhagavad-gītā, janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam, it is one of the items of the knowledge, to be aware of the miseries—birth, old age, disease, and death. Now, Krishna wants surrender and pure devotion. If by becoming a devotee, one never had any pain, then all sorts of materialistic people would come to Krishna just so that they would be free from pain and that is not what Krishna wants. Krishna consciousness helps us to tolerate the difficulties of material life. And the devotee doesn’t really suffer the same way ordinary people suffer, because he is conscious of Krishna. And he sees that Krishna is minimizing his suffering, that he should have been suffering more, that all of Krishna’s kindness upon His devotee is minimizing.

Devotee: Is it possible to be completely happy on the earth? Are there individuals that are completely happy? Whether they live in India or they live in the mountains of Tibet. Namahji is always happy.

Giriraj Swami: Yes, if one is fully God conscious or Krishna conscious, he can be completely happy. It doesn’t mean again that there won’t be bodily sufferings, janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam, but still internally, a pure devotee is completely happy. There was a painting of Srila Prabhupada in the old Boston temple where I joined. So, one of the devotees said to Srila Prabhupada, “You look so sad in that picture.” And Srila Prabhupada replied, “That was the moment of ecstasy.” [laughter]

Devotee: In the Bhagavad-gītā Krishna says, our Prabhupada also referenced that, that Krishna would reveal to you many different occasions. How did that happen to you, that realization of that, Krishna revealing to you, within your heart?

Giriraj Swami: Krishna revealing what?

Devotee: Whatever, teṣām evānukampārthamaham ajñāna-jaṁ. So what is the verse before that?

teṣāṁ satata-yuktānāṁ
bhajatāṁ prīti-pūrvakam
dadāmi buddhi-yogaṁ taṁ
yena mām upayānti te

Things will be revealed to you. I want to see from examples from your life how that happened.

Giriraj Swami: Well, Srila Prabhupada explains that, Krishna is in the heart of every living entity and He understands the sincerity of purpose of a particular individual. And if the individual is sincere, Krishna will guide him or give him the intelligence to take shelter of a bona fide spiritual master and associate with the Krishna consciousness movement. How did I experience that in my life? When I met Srila Prabhupada, Krishna in the heart inspired me that he is my perfect spiritual master and I should surrender to him. Yes.

Devotee: Who is Lord Nityananda? How can we understand who Lord Nityananda is?

Giriraj Swami: Well, to begin, do you know who Lord Krishna is? And do you know who Balarama is?

Devotee: Yes.

Giriraj Swami: All right, so in Kali-yuga, Krishna came as Lord Chaitanya, and Balarama came as Lord Nityananda. And Lord Nityananda is known for being especially merciful and compassionate. And I think of one nice statement of Srila Prabhupada that, in order to approach Radha and Krishna, you need the mercy of Lord Chaitanya. And in order to get the mercy of Lord Chaitanya, you need the mercy of Lord Nityananda. And in order to get the mercy of Lord Nityananda, you have to approach people like Jagai and Madhai. Do you know who Jagai and Madhai are? Yes.

Devotee: Can you just explain a little more about approaching people like Jagai and Madhai, approaching them for what? And what does it mean? Not everybody knows who Jagai and Madhai are.

Giriraj Swami: You say who is Jagai and Madhai are.

Devotee: They were two very sinful people, fallen brahmans, who would murder and rape and steal and drink all the time; very horrible people. And yet they became devotees by the mercy of Lord Nityananda. The text, well, it is in the Caitanya-bhāgavata, it is in the Caitanya-caritāmṛta, it is in all the biographical literature about Lord Chaitanya like the Marari Gupta, everything.

Giriraj Swami: I will elaborate on this because it is important history. So Lord Chaitanya, he ordered Lord Nityananda and Haridasa Thakura to go to meet people and tell them to worship Krishna, chant Krishna’s name, follow Krishna’s instructions. And when they were in the town, they saw a big crowd of people around these two drunken brothers—Jagai and Madhai. And so they inquired who are these people. And the townsfolk said that they are. . . It is very simple. As it turned out to be said, there are murderers, they commit rape, they are drunkards, they commit arson. There is practically no sinful activity in which they don’t engage. And Lord Nityananda thought that ‘If I can deliver these sinful brothers, then the mercy of Lord Chaitanya will be magnified. His reputation for being merciful will be increased.’

There were some exchanges between them, and finally Madhai took a clay pot and threw it at Nityananda and blood was pouring out of his forehead. But he said, “The cut doesn’t pain me so much, but what really pains me is the pain is that you are not accepting the mercy of Lord Chaitanya.” And meanwhile, the news went to Lord Chaitanya. And Lord Chaitanya came rushing to the spot with His Sudarśana chakra, which is divine weapon that He uses to punish demons, often to sever their heads for their necks; and He was ready to kill them. And Lord Nityananda intervened and said, “No, my Lord, in Kali-yoga, that means the present age, pretty much everyone will be like Jagai and Madhai, and if you kill them, then you will have to kill everyone. So in this incarnation, you are not meant to kill people’s bodies, but to kill their demonic mentalities.” And so, by Nityananda Prabhu’s intervention, Jagai and Madhai were delivered. Lord Nityananda and Lord Chaitanya gave them prema-bhakti, pure love of Godhead. So then Lord Chaitanya didn’t want any of His associates to have any doubts about Jagai and Madhai. So He had a kirtan and He invited Jagai and Madhai to come to the kirtan. And in the kirtan, Lord Chaitanya accepted all of Jadai and Madhai’s sinful reactions and His body turned black. So He said, “What do you see?” He asked the devotees, what do you see? Instead of looking like Gauranga, you are looking like Shyamasundara. And then he said, “Yes, I agree.” And then Lord Chaitanya said, “Okay, I have absorbed all these sinful reactions, where will they go? I have to become free from them, so where will they go?” And then Lord Chaitanya said, “They will go to the people who blaspheme devotees.” That is where all our sinful reactions will go.

So, we should be very careful about blaspheming devotees. There are ten offenses in the chanting of the holy names. And the first is sādhu-nindā, that means blaspheming the devotees who have dedicated their lives to propagating the holy names of the Lord. So we should be very careful about that, sādhu-nindā. And Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura has written a book called Harināma-cintāmaṇi, in which he elaborately discusses the ten offenses, what they are, how to avoid them. And if by chance one does commit one of the offenses, how one can become free from the effects. And he discusses various grounds on which someone might think he is justified in criticizing a devotee, and then he explains that none of those grounds justify sādhu-nindā. For example, a devotee’s low birth, one could criticize a devotee for his low birth. One could criticize a devotee for past sinful activities. One could criticize a devotee for current traces of past sinful activities. And Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura said that none of these are fair grounds to criticize the devotee, and criticize the devotee for any of these reasons or any other reason, that is a sādhu-nindā. We should avoid that at all cost.

Guest: So I was just wondering, in the Krishna consciousness, are you all knowing or is there still confusion inside you? When you have Krishna consciousness. Or did Krishna ever have confusion or anger? It feels confusing.

Devotee: One question is, if you are in Krishna consciousness, are you all-knowing? And the other question is, does Krishna Himself have any confusion, anger, grief, lust, and those things, etc.?

Giriraj Swami: Well, as far as the first question, Krishna is all-knowing, He is omniscient. And a devotee, he comes to Krishna consciousness, if not on his own, a mission for all knowing. But Krishna can give him the intelligence that he requires. Srila Prabhupada said that Krishna gives unlimited intelligence to the spiritual master, how to deal with the disciples. But otherwise no, becoming a Krishna conscious doesn’t mean you become omniscient. And Krishna is completely pure. There is no mundane lust, greed, anger, envy, or any of those faults. Krishna, He is completely pure, and He is the well-wisher of everybody. And in the Bhagavad-gītā it says,

bhoktāraṁ yajña-tapasāṁ
sarva-loka-maheśvaram
suhṛdaṁ sarva-bhūtānāṁ
jñātvā māṁ śāntim ṛcchati

That one who knows that Krishna is the proprietor of everything, that He is the enjoyer or the beneficiary of all sacrifices and austerities, and He is the well-wishing friend of every living entity, attains peace from the pangs of material existence. Srila Prabhupada calls this, the peace formula. If you want peace individually or collectively, we simply acknowledge these points, bhoktāraṁ yajña-tapasāṁ—Krishna is the beneficiary of all sacrifices and austerities; sarva-loka-maheśvaram—He is the proprietor of all planetary systems; suhṛdaṁ sarva-bhūtānāṁ—and He is the well-wishing friend of every living entity. If you understand these three points, then you attain peace from the pangs of the material existence; the peace formula.

Devotee: Another very important question. Is Krishna all-knowing, He knows our thoughts and our feelings. I hear this in the Jewish religion, and it says that God is all knowing; He knows our thoughts and our feelings, what we are going to do. Is this true or is it just a theory?

Giriraj Swami: It is true. Krishna is all knowing. One devotee asked Srila Prabhupada, “Does Krishna hear us when we pray to Him?” And Srila Prabhupada said, “Yes, and Krishna hears you even when you don’t pray to Him.”

Devotee: Is knowing Krishna and being Krishna the Godhead the same thing?

Giriraj Swami: No. We can never become Krishna. We can never become God. But we can know him to some extent by bhakti, bhaktyā mām abhijānāti. Krishna says that He can be known only by devotional service. You can never become a Krishna.

Guest: Could you please tell us how do we meditate when we are pulling the ropes of Lord Jagannatha’s cart in relation to Krishna’s pastimes and perhaps in relation to our relationship with Krishna?

Devotee: How do we meditate when pulling the ropes of Krishna’s cart in relation to Krishna’s pastimes and our relationship with Krishna?

Giriraj Swami: Yes, the Ratha-yatra festival was celebrated by Lord Chaitanya five hundred years ago when He was in Jagannatha Puri. And Lord Chaitanya is Krishna in the mood of Srimati Radharani. And so the background to the festival is that five thousand years ago when Krishna manifested His pastimes on earth, He spent His, you could say His childhood and His youth in Vrindavan. And then when He was about sixteen years old, He left Vrindavan and went to Mathura. And after Mathura, He went to Dvaraka. But He had most special and sweet relationships with His devotees in Vrindavan. So one year, there was a lunar eclipse and Krishna went from Dvaraka to Kurukshetra for the eclipse. And the residents of Vrindavan heard that Krishna was going. And they also went to Kurukshetra to meet Him. And Srimati Radharani, the topmost lover of Krishna, she was happy to see Krishna, but she didn’t like Him dressed as a royal prince with the clattering of horses and chariots and elephants. So she said, “I am the same Radharani and You are the same Krishna, but I cannot enjoy with you here, rather come back to Vrindavan and We can enjoy there as we used to.” So, Lord Chaitanya’s mood in the Ratha-yatra was of Radharani dragging or pulling Krishna back to Vrindavan. That is His mood in the Ratha-yatra.

And how Lord Jagannatha and Baladeva and Subhadra came to look the way they do. One explanation is that in Dvaraka, the residents saw Krishna’s extraordinary affection for the residents of Vrindavan. He was always remembering them and feeling separation from them. So, they wanted to know what is so special about the residents of Vrindavan. And the only person in Dvaraka, who had been in Vrindavan was Rohini. So, Rohini gathered all the devotees in a hall to tell them about Krishna in Vrindavan. And she didn’t want to be interrupted at any cost. So she posted Subhadra outside the door to make sure no one came in and interrupted her. But Subhadra also wanted to hear, so she was at the door but she kept her ears to the door so she could also hear. And at the same time, Krishna and Balarama came by and they also wanted to hear and they put their ears to the door and all three of them, Subhadra, Balarama, and Krishna, melted in ecstasy and assume the futures that we see in the deities of Jagannatha, Baladeva, and Subhadra, melting in ecstasy hearing the pastimes of Krishna in Vrindavan.

Devotee: Hare Krishna Maharaja. I was wondering if you could please just describe what were some memories of moments that were most relishable to you along your path.

Giriraj Swami: Hearing you ask that question. [Laughter] Meeting Srila Prabhupada and surrendering to Srila Prabhupada, I think that was very memorable and relishable. And the opening of the Juhu temple, even though Srila Prabhupada wasn’t there physically, but we did feel his presence and we knew he would have been very pleased with the temple finally opening. And there was one time when he gave me instructions that basically set the course of my whole life.

So I joined in Boston, and Satsvarupa was the temple president. He was also the editor of Back to Godhead magazine, and he was always looking for articles. So I wrote an article about the genuine spiritual master. And then, Srila Prabhupada wanted to return to India and invite Krishna consciousness there. And he wanted the number two person from each center. There were about twelve or fourteen then. So I was the number two man in Boston, so I got to go. Everyone wanted to go. I got to go from Boston. So when we were in Gorakhpur, the issue of Back to Godhead with my article came. And Srila Prabhupada called for me, and he said, “I read your article, it was very nice, you should write. You should take up writing as your first business.” Then he said, “Do you ever think of getting married? And I said, “No, except I see that all the GBCs are married.” Because initially, the Srila Prabhupada had the idea that the GBCs were managers and they should be grihasthas. So, all the first GBCs were the grihasthas and he had a different plan for the sannyasis. So when he asked me, “Do you ever think of getting married?” I said, “No, except I see that all the GBCs are married.” And Prabhupada said, “You will never be GBC.” [laughter] He said that, “It is better to remain single, brahmachari, and after some time, I will give you sannyasa.” And he said that, “The demands of the senses are like itches. And if you scratch the itch, you might get some temporary relief, but then it will come back worse. So rather than scratching the itch, it is better to tolerate and gradually it will subside.” And so he said, “Not only the demand, but the demand of all the senses is better to tolerate and gradually they will subside.” So that was the blueprint for my life.

Devotee: What is the difference between tolerating and repressing the senses?

Giriraj Swami: Well, if we have some urge and we tolerable it, then it should suppress. But if some urge keeps coming back, it may be that we need to do something about it, except for getting married. That is the last resort, but it could come to that. Yes, when we chant, different things may come into our minds and it is best to just, ignore them and bring the mind back to the sound of the holy name. But if something keeps coming back into our minds, then it may be that we have to attend to it. Not when we chant japa, but this may be something that we need to address.

Devotee: [Unintelligible 00:37:15]

Giriraj Swami: You are making a comment. It is a good comment. You are elaborating on what I said. Somehow when you said, you have no question, it reminded me of something that His Holiness Ṛtadhvaja Swami once said. He said, “I only made one mistake in my whole life, once I thought I was wrong and I wasn’t.”

Devotee: Maharaja, there is a story that I heard that you probably would tell it better. There was a saint that was chanting in the woods and a woman kept coming to try to get his attention, and he kept saying, when I am done chanting. Do you know that one?

Giriraj Swami: Yes. This is with relevance to nāmācārya Haridasa Thakura. There was a landlord named Ramachandra Khan who was envious of Haridasa Thakura and wanted to disgrace him. So he sent a prostitute to him in the dead of night and she assumed various provocative postures and revealed different parts of her body and disclosed that she wanted to enjoy with him. So Haridasa Thakura said, “I have to finish my quota of rounds, japa, and after I finish my quota, I will enjoy with you.” So he kept chanting all night, and eventually she dozed off, and then the morning came. He said “I am sorry I had to complete my quota of rounds. You can come tomorrow.” So she came the next night, the same thing happened. Then she came the third night, the same thing happened. But by hearing the pure chanting of Haridasa Thakura, her heart became changed. And she fell at his feet. She disclosed that she had been sent by Ramachandra Khan to disgrace him. And being purified by hearing his chanting, she wanted to become his disciple. And so, he initiated her and she became a great devotee. 

Devotee: I have a question on maha-maya. She creates all the pleasure in this world. Some devotees have fallen like that. I told the Jada-Bharata story. So why is she so powerful so that she creates a lot of illusion of pleasure where we get trapped in this material world such a way that she is so powerful. She is so powerful, it is not easy to escape from her.

Giriraj Swami: Yes, he says that maya is so powerful it is hard to escape her. So there was once a king named Janak, very saintly king, one of the twelve mahājanas. There was a sage named Astavakra Muni in his assembly. They were outdoors, and so the king asked, “Why is maya so hard to get free?” So, Astavakra Muni ran up to a tree and was holding the tree. He was saying, “Let me go, let me go, let me go.” So it is not that maya is holding on to us, we are holding on to maya. But Srila Prabhupada said that maya is also a pure devotee of Krishna. And her purpose is to keep people from disturbing Krishna. She tests people. If they are really sincere to serve Krishna or if they want to bother Krishna with material desires. So she has that purpose also.

Devotee: Hare Krishna Maharaja. I wanted to ask you, what was your favorite part about writing Many Moons?

Giriraj Swami: Well, my first thought was to write about Tamal Krishna Goswami, because we were very close friends. It was very enlivening and enlightening and purifying to write about all of them but I would say that writing about Tamal Krishna Goswami was my favorite.

Devotee: Hare Krishna Maharaja. You can correct me if I am wrong, but you have been a lifetime brahmachari and the men seem to be interested in how to control the sex urge. Aren’t there some things you can do, like not overeating or not eating too many sweets? things like that.

Giriraj Swami: I overeat all the time and I always eat too many sweets.

Devotee: Sometimes you may be. . . you are probably over the moon, but for those that are new.

Giriraj Swami: As Srila Prabhupada said, the tongue, the belly, and the genitals are in a line. And the whole effort begins with the tongue, controlling the tongue, not over-eating. And one instruction that Srila Prabhupada gave that I found very relevant. He said that, “If you want to remain brahmachari, you should maintain good relations with everyone.” So, I thought what is the connection between remaining brahmachari and maintaining good relations with everyone? And I thought of two correlations. One is that to keep good relations with everyone, you pretty much have to be in the mode of goodness. You need to be influenced by the mode of passion and ignorance. You are not going to maintain good relations with everyone. And the other is that one of the effects of committing an offense is that you become filled with material desires. So, you don’t maintain good relations with everyone and to the contrary, you commit offenses against them, then the reaction will be that material desires come in.

Devotee: As you mentioned to Tamal Krishna Goswami, we were hoping you could maybe share with us a fond or favorite memory you had with him that you observed in Srila Prabhupada together.

Giriraj Swami: Alright, there is one that comes to mind from 1977, very late, and Srila Prabhupada come with us in Juhu. So Srila Prabhupada was in his quarters upstairs in Juhu, and there were two sets of doors between him and us. And when I came up, Tamal Krishna Goswami greeted me very warmly. We embraced and said we should speak softly, be as far away as possible in Prabhupada’s quarters. So then he asked me to go to the bank and make a deposit. And I replied that there are so many people who can go to the bank and make a deposit. But there are other things I can do that others can’t so it is better if someone else goes to the bank and makes the deposit. So then, Srila Prabhupada rang his bell, and we were both excited because Prabhupada wasn’t well, it wasn’t that often we got to interact with him. So he rang his bell and we went into his quarters, and he asked a few questions, asked how my preaching was going. And he was speaking about the principle of Bhagavad-gītā—As It Is. And then he said, “If I tell you to go to the bank and you refuse, then where is my authority?”

Devotee: Where is my authority? That is a good one. Where is my authority? That is a good one. Where is my authority? He is about authority; he is a good one.

Giriraj Swami: So I thought, maybe the Supersoul inspired Srila Prabhupada to say that. And then that made me consider that I shouldn’t just take it that Tamal Krishna Goswami, my godbrother and is telling me to do service. But see it that it coming from Srila Prabhupada through Tamal Krishna Goswami. So that was one instance.

Devotee: I have one question, Maharaja. You mentioned that Srila Prabhupada gave you the instruction to write books, and you carried that out so beautifully and did so much more beyond that. So I was wondering, two things. What are some good pointers and tips, and also a nice meditation one can have when trying to carry out their guru’s instructions and also utilizing anything Krishna gave us in service?

Giriraj Swami: Yes. It said that when the spiritual master gives an order, he also give the potency to execute it. And as we heard, the order of the spiritual master is the life and soul of the disciple. And so we should execute it to the best of our ability. But sometimes we might receive an instruction that we are not able to execute immediately, and I will give an example of my own. Srila Prabhupada told me to write. So I went out and got pen and paper. That is how we wrote in those days. So then we ended up in Bombay, and Shyamasundara Prabhu was the temple president. And he was preparing to put on the first Bombay pandal program, and he wanted me to go out and collect ads for the souvenir book. But I said, “Well, Srila Prabhupada told me I should write.” And Shyamasundara replied, “Yes, you can write anytime, but this is one time in the year, you can go into any man’s office and ask for an advertisement for the souvenir book. The money is not going to come out of his pocket, it will come from the company. So you should do this and then you can write.”

So, I thought that what he said makes sense, so I did it. And then Srila Prabhupada came, and as usual, he would come into his room, and he would glance lovingly at all the devotees, enquire how they are doing. So he said to me, “So, Giriraj, how is your writing going?” And I was flustered, I didn’t even know how to reply. He said, “All right, we will talk later.” So then after everyone left, he called me back. And I explained that I had every intention of writing, but Shyamasundara said that this was a special occasion and I should collect ads for the souvenir book for the pandal. And I thought what he said made sense, and I know you also wanted us to cooperate with our authorities so I did what he said. But I wasn’t sure if I did the right thing. So I was a little apprehensive how Srila Prabhupada would respond. And then he said, “One may temporarily suspend the order of the spiritual master, but one can never neglect it.” And then he said, even himself, he was ordered by his spiritual master to write and publish books. But he has been so busy traveling in India, he hasn’t had much time to do that. He said, you can temporarily suspend the order of the spiritual master, but you can never neglect it. Incidentally, this is on the topic, our godsister, [Unintelligible 00:56:30] Devaki is staying with us.

Guest: Hare Krishna Maharaja. What is the difference between worshipping Shiva and worshipping Lord Krishna? And what is the difference between Lord Vishnu and Lord Krishna?

Giriraj Swami: So as far as the difference between Lord Vishnu and Lord Krishna, they are the same. Srila Prabhupada gave the example that when the man is sitting on bench of the high court, he is called “Your honor!” But when he comes home, his wife says, ‘John, can you go to the store and bring some milk?’ So he is the same person, but when he is sitting on the judge’s bench, he is addressed in awe and reverence; that is Vishnu. And when he is at home and is addressed in a more intimate way, that is Krishna. As far as Shiva, vaiṣṇavānāṁ yathā śambhuḥ, Shiva is the greatest Vaishnava. He himself is a devotee of Krishna. He always chants the holy name of Krishna, and he is his own tattva, he is not a jiva. He is more than a jiva, but he is not Vishnu. He is less than Vishnu. So he is known as Shiva-tattva. So we honor him, vaiṣṇavānāṁ yathā śambhuḥ, as the greatest Vaishnava. And especially there is form of Gopeshwara Mahadeva in Vrindavan. There is a whole history to that.

Devotee: On the question of sannyasi and grihastha, Prabhupada mentioned, while you are in grihastha, you can be still sannyasi. Can you elaborate on this statement?

Giriraj Swami: Yes. I actually read that in the purport that if a grihastha either does not have sex or has sex only for the sake of procreation, to produce Krishna conscious children, then he is also consider celibate in a way.

Guest: When did the Hare Krishna movement get started, and who founded it; how long ago?

Giriraj Swami: It depends on how you define the Hare Krishna movement. It depends how you define the Hare Krishna movement. In one sense you could say, it was founded by Lord Chaitanya in India five hundred years ago. And this Hare Krishna movement is a continuation of the Hare Krishna movement He began. But as far as this specific Hare Krishna movement, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, it was begun by our founder Acharya Srila Prabhupada when he came to America in 1966. He founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, which is popularly known as the Hara Krishna movement.

Guest: But where was the head, where was the district, what state?

Giriraj Swami: New York City.

Guest: Oh, it is in New York. The teachings, it goes back five hundred years; the teachings of this particular guru of the Hindu religion.

Giriraj Swami: Yes, Lord Chaitanya was about five hundred years ago. He was in India.

Guest: How long did he live? When did he die? How many years did he live?

Giriraj Swami: Forty-eight.

Guest: Oh. Is it possible for a person to live to two hundred years? I have heard there are gurus in India that live to two hundred years or more. Because it counts if people live to two hundred years.

Giriraj Swami: Yes, there are yogis that can live a very long life.

Guest: Can they do it at will? I think they get to a spiritual level, but they can just do it at will.

Giriraj Swami: Yes. It doesn’t necessarily mean it is a higher spiritual level, but they can do that by yoga. A person is allowed a certain number of breaths in his lifetime. So a yogi can slow down his breathing.

Guest: Oh wow, the breath. So the breath has a lot to do with it.

Giriraj Swami: Yes.

Guest: So how many breaths are you talking about for the average life cycle that the age? How many breaths would that be? How many breaths would you have to do? You say breaths.

Giriraj Swami: I don’t know how many breaths.

Guest: But you say breaths to determine how long you live. How many breaths?

Giriraj Swami: Yes, you are alive at a certain number of breaths in your life. So the yogis slow down their breathing, so they live for more years.

Guest: Oh wow. So you can slow it down. So yes, I can learn yoga, so I can do that. But what good is a long life if you don’t have good quality of life? You have to have quality of life. Many people are fools. They live to be eighty and they are fools. They drink, they smoke, they do everything. But they are lower than animals. Some people are evil, and they are lower than animals. So living a long life is not going to do people any good, they are more miserable.

Giriraj Swami: Quality of life is more important than the quantity.

Devotee: I am going to ask you a question. Can you hear me? It is not really a question so relevant to the media, but I was wondering, in terms of Prabhupada’s books, the new artwork in the books, the covers, the books, the artwork inside the books, for me maybe it is a subjective thing, but they don’t seem so attractive like they were in the early editions of the books. My question is that the earliest paintings were under the guidance of Srila Prabhupada. But now, I don’t think they paint a lot of the paintings, they don’t seem so creative, so nice, maybe that is because they were not under the guidance of Prabhupada or an elevated Vaishnava. My question is, is there a way for devotees like myself, I just read books, and is there a way for devotees to have more of an input in the artwork of Prabhupada’s books? How do they decide these things like the artwork? That is my question. I can’t make sense of that. It just seems like some of the artwork and the sources they decide, for me personally, they seem quite bland and also aesthetically pleasing to everybody. Is there room for change? How can the books be more aesthetically pleasing?

Devotee: Well, that is a good question.

Giriraj Swami: I never noticed that the artwork was worse in the recent editions. But I did see that they were selling Īśopaniṣad. So there is a picture, there are two different covers for Īśopaniṣad and in that picture, Lord Vishnu is looking like this [looking down]. And in his room in Julu, I was there, Srila Prabhupada commented, “Lord Vishnu does not look down to his nose.” So I have informed some of the BBTs what Prabhupada said. There are other pictures of Vishnu that have been on the cover of the Sri Īśopaniṣad but Prabhupada didn’t approve of this one.

Devotee: That is a good one.

Giriraj Swami: All right. Thank you for listening so patiently and attentively and for asking such intelligent, thought-provoking questions. I guess we can end now. We will conclude with Vaishnava praṇāma for those of you who know.

Let us offer our respectful obeisances unto all the Vaishnava devotees of the Lord. They are just like desire trees who can fulfill the desires of everyone, and they are full of compassion for the fallen conditioned souls.

vāñchā-kalpatarubhyaś ca kṛpā-sindhubhya eva ca 

patitānāṁ pāvanebhyo vaiṣṇavebhyo namo namaḥ

Ananta-koṭi Vaishnava Vrinda ki jaya!

Srila Prabhupada ki jaya!

Jagannatha Ratha-yatra ki jaya!

Devotee: His Holiness Giriraj Swami Maharaja ki jaya!