Expert at everything
Once we were in Mayapur. We had an old—I think it was a 1948 Hudson or some old, big car. And I was driving. We had left the main road. If you have been on the main road you know how bad it is.
Time destroys everything
Srila Prabhupada speaks in France. He was saying time will destroy everything. One time Napoleon is adored in France. Here is France, where is your Napoleon now.
Wherever you are there is Vrindavan
As Prabhupāda had said to his friends uptown, “Everywhere is my home,” whereas without Kṛṣṇa’s shelter the whole world would be a desolate place.
We are controlled God
Only Krsna is the supreme master. Ekale isvara krsna, ara saba bhrtya. Now… Siva-virinci-nutam. Even great demigods like Lord Brahma, Lord Siva, they also subordinate to Krsna.
Where is the technology?
In Boston I was invited in the Massachusetts Technological Institute? Yes. So I, first of all I questioned the students that “You have got technological department.
Come to Krsna and you will be saved
Mumuksavo ghora-rupan. We are therefore restricting not to worship any other. Therefore when I started this mission many friends advised me “Why don’t you make it ‘God consciousness’?”
Envious of Krsna
As it is mentioned: narayana-kalah santa bhajanti hy anasuyavah. Anasuyava. Asuya. Asuya means envious. Just like when we present Krsna, especially in India…
Real nonviolence
Sometimes in the year 1950 or ’51 I went to Jhansi, and it happened so that the…, the friend in whose house I was staying, he was a leader, and there was a meeting for Gandhi’s disappearance day.
We become what we associate with
We become what we associate with. If we associate with impure people, impure activities, impure thoughts, we become polluted. If we associate with people who are pure, activities that are pure, and thoughts that are pure, we become purified. Srila Prabhupada, our guru, gave the example of an iron rod. If we put it in fire, it becomes red and hot like fire; and if you touch it, you’ll be burnt the same way as when you touch the fire directly. That is the power of association. But if we put that same iron rod in ice, it will become as cold as ice. So, our purification or our degradation is based on what our mind and senses associate with.
What is required to become Krishna conscious?
Yesterday, at Radha-Rasabihari temple, my dear god-brother, Srutakirti Prabhu, who was Srila Prabhupada’s longest standing personal servant, gave a class. He cited a particular incident that is so essentially instructive to all of us.
Worship the deity to take birth in America
One time, one of my god brothers was visiting a temple in Vrindavana in the 1970’s and was praying very sincerely in front of the deity and the pujari, who was a bit of a smartha brahmana at that time, said to my god brother, “You are praying very nicely to the deity. So in your next life you can start to achieve perfection. You can take birth in India, and maybe become a brahmana.” This is their idea that they are superior because they have taken birth in India. Some relevance to that, but that doesn’t mean one can’t change in this life-time and become a devotee. So he went back and told Prabhupada, “This pujari blessed me that, you know, if I am very sincere, in my next lifetime I will take birth in India.” Prabhupada became upset and he said, “You should have told him, that if he (the pujari) worships the deity very nicely”, they are in Vrindavana, “then in his next life-time, he can take birth in America and be a part of Lord Caitanya’s Sankirtana Movement”.
It is natural to serve
Suddenly the old derelict returns, announcing his entrance: “How are ya?” He is carrying something. He maneuvers his way through the group, straight to the back of the temple, where the Swami is sitting. He opens the toilet room door, puts two rolls of bathroom tissue inside, closes the door, and then turns to the sink, sits some paper towels on top of it and puts two more rolls of bathroom tissue and some more paper towels under the sink. He then stands and turns around toward the Swami and the audience. The Swami is looking at him and asks, “What is this?” The bum is silent now; he has done his work. Prabhupāda begins to laugh, thanking his visitor, who is now moving toward the door: “Thank you. Thank you very much.” The bum exits. “Just see,” Prabhupāda now addresses his congregation. “It is a natural tendency to give some service. Just see, he is not in order, but he thought that, “Here is something. Let me give some service.’ Just see how automatically it comes. This is natural.”
Real tolerance – being dutiful in all circumstances
One time a professor, scholar, Indian man asked Srila Prabhupada, “Krsna says in Bhagavad-Gita matra sparsas tu kaunteya (BG 2.14) yet we see Subhadra weeping when Abhimanyu was killed, Arjuna weeping after having heard the Bhagavad Gita. Why was he so disturbed? He wasn’t supposed to be disturbed. After all, body is a temporary thing, his soul wasn’t killed”. Srila Prabhupada said, “It is natural. The body is the medium by which we communicate with the soul. It is natural when parent(s) lose their child, they are going to feel the pain in the heart and cry. But he did not stop his service to Krsna in the battlefield”. Arjuna was not crying because the soul was dead. He was crying because the body which is the medium to communicate with the soul as father and son is no longer there.
I have made your qualifications
Gaudiya math’s biggest sanyasis were getting a lots of money to start centres. Here are just some new devotees, some foreign hippies, who just became devotees, who were just struggling to follow the principles and chant their rounds, and they don’t have any money, all they have is the inspiration, the example of Prabhupada and they are starting centres, and there is hundreds and hundreds of people coming everywhere, transforming their lives, becoming devotees. How is that possible? And some of those people didn’t even last in their own Krsna consciousness. Of course, their service was an eternal glory, some of them fell away; but Prabhupada on Jaladuta prayed to be a puppet and because, he won so much affection, so much faith, and so much love from these people, they were willing to be his puppets and even without qualifications at all. They were able to do, what the greatest sanyasis could not, what the greatest scholars could not.
Prabhupada was asked, “What is our qualification to do all these things and to have all these things?” Prabhupada said, very humbly, he said “You have no qualifications; I’ve made your qualifications”. And he was giving the qualification – His desire to preach Krsna consciousness was manifesting in a big way in all of these cities. He sent people to Africa, he sent people to middle-east, to Iran, to muslim countries, to turkey, he sent people to South America, he sent people to Australia, eventually, he sent someone to China, he personally went to Russia and sent a girl, He sent a girl there, “go there and marry a person in Russia so you can stay there and preach”. And these were just, you know people, the only qualification they had, factually was – Prabhupada’s love for his spiritual master was empowering them to fulfill Srila Prabhupada’s mission. It’s really a miracle how it happened.
Better spend time curing the disease
Srila Prabhupada encourages us to get out of the material world – not endlessly speculate on how we got here.
Srila Prabhupada dictated this essay in reply to a question about the origin of the living entity: Were we originally with Krishna, or did we fall from Krishna’s impersonal energy, the brahmajyoti? The essay was an addendum to a letter Prabhupada wrote to his disciple Madhudvisa Dasa in June of 1972. Because he falls down from Brahma-sayujya, he thinks that this may be his origin, but he does not remember that even before that, he was with Krishna. So the conclusion is that whatever may be our past, let us come to Krishna consciousness and immediately join Krishna. It is a waste of time for a diseased man to try to find out how he has become diseased; better to spend time curing the disease.
Srila Prabhupada stroke on Jaladuta
As Prabhupāda sat in his hotel room that evening with a few disciples at his feet, he reminisced about how he had come to America in 1965 and had suffered two heart attacks at sea. “They say that anyone who gets a third heart attack,” said Prabhupāda, “they must expire. I had two attacks on the ship, and then in New York a third one-paralyzed. Left side was paralyzed. I do not know how I was saved. And one girl, that captain’s wife, she studied astrology. She said, “Swami, if you can survive your seventieth year, then you will live for one hundred years.’ ”
Śrīla Prabhupāda and his disciples laughed.
“So,” Prabhupāda continued, “somehow or other I have survived my seventieth year. I do not know whether… They say I will live for a hundred years. But seventieth year was severe. Three heart attacks and paralysis. And I was without any family. At that time none of you were with me. I was alone. I wasn’t dependent on anyone. But on the ship I saw that Kṛṣṇa was going to save me. I was going for His mission.”
Srila Prabhupada saved from third stroke in New York
On Memorial Day, May 30, 1967 in New York, Srila Prabhupada suffered a stroke in New York. The prognosis was grave.Yamuna: Swamiji had sent us a telegram which said, “If you pray to Lord Jagannatha, and if He hears your prayers, I will stay; otherwise I may go.”Srila Prabhupada taught the devotees in New York the prayers to Lord Nrsimhadeva and asked them to request the Lord to allow him to remain alive longer to spread the fledgling mission of Krishna Consciousness. “My Spiritual Master has not finished his work, so dear Lord Krishna, please let him finish.”On June 5, 1967, Srila Prabhupada wrote to the devotees in San Francisco expressing his gratitude for their prayers: I am so much obliged to you for your prayers to Krishna to save my life. Due to your sincere and ardent prayers, Krishna has saved my life. I was to die on Tuesday certainly, but because you prayed sincerely, I am saved. Now I am improving gradually and coming to original condition. Now I can hope to meet you again and chant with you Hare Krishna.
Please give me your blessings
Srila Prabhupada was in Indian train and this one man just crash right into Prabhupada’s compartment and said, “Swamiji give me your blessing, please give me your blessing”. Prabhupada was busy doing other things so the person kept insisting, “give me your blessings”. Prabhupada got up, he followed him, Prabhupada came back he followed him back and said, “Swamiji please give me your blessings”. Prabhupada said, “I bless you that your material life is finished” and the person literally felt at the floor and started crying and begging, “Not that blessing Swami, Swamiji not that kind of blessing”. He said, “No I have already blessed you”.
My miracle – Hippies into happies
Someone asked Srila Prabhupada, “Can you show me a miracle?” He wanted to see creating some ashes or creating some gold, or reading his mind or telling him who is mother was or when his mother died. These are miracles. Many mystics demonstrate to the world but Srila Prabhupada explained that “My miracle is I’ve transformed hippies into happies by inspiring them with the association of Krishna, His name, His beautiful form. These people, who were addicted to all kinds of materialistic activities, who were malice and rebellious, are now well behaved, gentle and blissful. They are lovers of God.
Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati chastising Srila Prabhupada
Once in a room with many disciples, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī was speaking and Abhay listening when an old man beside Abhay motioned to him. As Abhay leaned over to hear what the man wanted, Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta suddenly spoke out in annoyance at the two apparently inattentive students. “Bābū,” he first addressed the old man beside Abhay, “do you think you have purchased me with your 150-rupees-per-month donation?” And then, turning to Abhay: “Why don’t you come up here and speak instead of me?” Abhay was outwardly mortified, yet he treasured the rebuke.
Worship spiritual master as God
“And now,” he said at length, “I will tell you what is meant by initiation. Initiation means that the spiritual master accepts the student and agrees to take charge, and the student accepts the spiritual master and agrees to worship him as God.” He paused. No one spoke. “Any questions?” And when there were none, he got up and walked out. The devotees were stunned. What had they just heard him say? For weeks he had stressed that when anyone claims to be God he should be considered a dog.
“My mind’s just been blown,” said Wally.
“Everybody’s mind is blown,” said Howard.
“Swamiji just dropped a bomb”.
… Wally went back to the temple and consulted Howard, and together they went up to Swamiji’s apartment. “Does what you told us this morning,” Howard asked, “mean we are supposed to accept the spiritual master to be God?”
“That means he is due the same respect as God, being God’s representative,” Prabhupäda replied, calmly.
“Then he is not God?”
“No,” Prabhupäda said, “God is God. The spiritual master is His representative. Therefore, he is as good as God because he can deliver God to the sincere disciple. Is that clear?” It was.
Disciple should simply follow
Malati devi had been commissioned by Hansadutta das to arrange for large Deities for the Hamburg temple and had found a five-foot pair of Radha-Krishna Deities in Jaipur. After returning to Bombay and telling Srila Prabhupada about Them, he immediately wanted Them for Vrindavan, even though Yamuna had been painstakingly working on plans for the Deities who were eventually installed. She later used it to illustrate that the duty of the disciple is to follow the instructions of the Spiritual Master— in essence to flow with the waves of change.
Yamuna: if one is a true disciple of a bona fide Spiritual Master, then he or she must be willing to carry out his orders. So if the Spiritual Master says a rope is a snake, to the disciple it is a snake, and vice versa. The key words here are “bona fide.” When shastra, the previous Acharyas and the Spiritual Master are all in philosophical agreement, then it is the disciples’ duty to simply follow— that is all.
Came here to give
There is a proverb: apanar dhana bilaye diye bhiksa mage parer dvare(?). They have lost their own culture, and they are now beggars. They are going to beg from door to door in the foreign countries. When I was speaking in Berkeley University sometimes in the year 1966, one Indian student stood up and he said, “Swamiji, what this Krsna consciousness movement will do? We require now technology.” So I replied, “Yes. You are after technology. So you are a beggar. I am not a beggar. I have come here to give something. That is the difference. I have come here to give some culture, and you have come to imitate the Western civilization by technology. That is the difference. You’ll remain a beggar, I shall remain a giver. That is the difference.” So still I am maintaining that position of giving, not taking. Before me, so many swamijis went there. They did not give, but they took something and came here and advertised themselves as foreign-returned sannyasi and exploited the people. They lost even their original dress. Everyone knows, I have never changed my dress. Rather, I have given the dress to the foreigners, and they have taken it.
