Date: February 19, 2009
Verse: Srimad Bhagavatam 3.24.4
Speaker: Badrinarayan Prabhu

sa tvayaradhitah suklo vitanvan mamakam yasah
chetta te hrdaya-granthim audaryo brahma-bhavanah

TRANSLATION

The Personality of Godhead, being worshiped by you, will spread my name and fame. He will vanquish the knot of your heart by becoming your son and teaching knowledge of Brahman.

PURPORT

When the Supreme Personality of Godhead comes to disseminate spiritual knowledge for the benefit of all people, He generally descends as the son of a devotee, being pleased by the devotee’s devotional service. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is the father of everyone. No one, therefore, is His father, but by His inconceivable energy He accepts some of the devotees as His parents and descendants. It is explained here that spiritual knowledge vanquishes the knot of the heart. Matter and spirit are knotted by false ego. This identification of oneself with matter, which is called hrdaya-granthi, exists for all conditioned souls, and it becomes more and more tightened when there is too much affection for sex life. The explanation was given by Lord Rsabha to His sons that this material world is an atmosphere of attraction between male and female. That attraction takes the shape of a knot in the heart, and by material affection it becomes still more tight. For people who hanker after material possessions, society, friendship and love, this knot of affection becomes very strong. It is only by brahma-bhavana — the instruction by which spiritual knowledge is enhanced — that the knot in the heart is cut to pieces. No material weapon is needed to cut this knot, but it requires bona fide spiritual instruction. Kardama Muni instructed his wife, Devahuti, that the Lord would appear as her son and disseminate spiritual knowledge to cut the knot of material identification.

Badrinarayan Prabhu

So thank you for giving me a few moments of your time. I have taken some notes because you have given me your time, I am going to try to do the best I can with it. It is a technical thing.

I want to go somewhere. I want to say a little something about the knot in the heart first. If you look at a knot, the more threads, the tighter it becomes. It has many, many threads. When you pull on one thread it becomes tighter. So picture a knot, many, many threads, a boy scout’s nightmare. Just picture so many threads. So those threads are sometimes compared to our senses, taste, touch, smell, sound all of those. And when they combine together, it becomes a very strong knot. The culmination of that, the apex, the full manifestation of those senses, all of those sensory experiences being tied in a big knot is this affection for male and female, this sex. That is the big samosa. It combines it all together. That is the big combination.

They have in medicine; I was thinking Prabhupada said that, because one of those tastes, sex attraction, kissing, so that is some taste but Prabhupada said behind that smile is the jaws of death. So we should remember that nice sweet smile, just remember what is beyond the lips, the nice sharp teeth is just waiting.

So but if there is a poison, the antidote is also the solution. If you get bitten by a snake they take that venom and turn it into the antidote. So just as all these senses are combined in this big knot, this attachment to this material world in the same way the reverse of that, Prabhupada said once about japa that if one is actually chanting japa nicely, smells the nice smell of the incense offered to the Lord instead of some material form, he is thinking about the form and pastimes, instead of some romance he is thinking about the Lord’s lila, the Lord’s form, instead of sweet romance he is hearing the holy sweet sound of the Holy Name.

Prabhupada said, “If you want to touch a woman, touch Tulasi.” He told Visnujana Maharaja that. There is also the nice touching of the japa mala. So all of these things have a mundane samadhi of this mundane sex attraction. There is also if one is chanting nice japa, all the senses fixed in that transcendental samadhi if done properly actually can cut the hard knot in the heart. So that is a little sideline, we are going to go back to that just now.

There is a progression here in the storyline if you just follow it. We start off with Devahuti. She is feeling cheated by the material nature. Nobody likes to be cheated. I remember when we all first came to India; there was practically a daily experience of being cheated left and right. No one likes that. If one feels cheated by the material nature it should give rise to some detachment.

The majority of people are just on for the ride. Just like Mrgari the hunter. So why did he kill animals and leave it that way? “We have always done it that way.” So everybody is just on the ride. They just accept that we have just always done things that way. That is the meaning on life. Some onewas saying in class the other day, if they can’t say anything nice about the guy they say,” Oh, he was a good provider!”

So you grew up, you had a family; you went to Kmart, ki jai! If one becomes frustrated, in my experience, I remember to this day, an eye opener of this material world, this expectation and result. There is a big expectation of what we are going to get? And if one is intelligent what does it actually pan out, what do we actually get? So when I was a kid, six or seven years old, I had gone to the movie theatre with my older brother, he was watching out for me. My mother had given me ten cents; maybe it was even a nickel, five cents for buying a candy bar, to buy some snack item. I remember being a greedy little kid, calculating that I had five cents, what is the range of five-cent candy, which was the biggest, which would last the longest.

So I made my calculation, and I analyzed, the candy bar was about this big, (shows the audience the size with his hands) I remember the candy bar that would last the longest. I gave them my money and they gave me the bar. I opened up the package and out slipped the, the package was about this big (Shows hand signal to audience to illustrate the size) and what slipped out was about this big (Shows with hand.). It was on a cardboard tray. I thought, hey, “I’ve been hoaxed! What happened?” It was an eye opener for me that all that glitters is not gold. What was presented was not what I got. And frankly my life has been like that ever since.

It’s been a non-stop set of expectations materially. What is the result? Prabhupada said some people learn by hearing, some people learn by seeing, some people learn by experiencing. And some people even they see, even they hear and even they experience they still don’t clue in!

So here we see Devahuti is thinking, “I have everything in life and it all comes to this: my husband is leaving.” Here is where we are going to go, I’ll give you a road map. From this sense of renunciation should come an analytical study of what is actually happening in this world! Is all that glitters as good as gold? What is actually valuable, what actually means anything in this world? And when one actually becomes renounced, actually Prabhupada said human life could be sorted into two piles. Anyone know those two piles? What are the two piles one should sort life into? (Member of the audience utters a guess.) That is also good. But Prabhupada says sat and asat. What is permanent and what is temporary? One should simply sort out life. This is intelligence. What is sat and what is asat? And when one sorts out what is asat, what is temporary, the result from being cheated comes renunciation, what is going on here, detachment.

Just like if one is looking at this floor, if one is too close one cannot see the pattern. If you step back a little you can say, “Oh, this is a diamond and that fits into a square.” And you see the pattern. So from frustration should come renunciation! From that renunciation should come the detachment to see. Just like we are going to get sankhya yoga, how it all breaks down. Ultimately one realizes this is all material and I am not that, I am eternal. From that eternal position one develops atmarama, self satisfied one becomes happy. From that happy position one can actually be kind to others, one can actually be compassionate. From that compassionate position one can then engage in the sankirtan mission.

One can give mercy to others. You can’t give mercy if you are not satisfied, if you are simply trying to exploit and hanker. Prabhupada said death to a sannyasi if a sannyasi goes to a rich man’s house his wife is there serving nicely and if the sannyasi thinks, “Oh I had a beautiful wife like that once.” Or thinks, “Oh. I could have had a beautiful wife.” Or if he thinks, “I could have had a big house like that.” That is death to a sannyasi. Similarly, if one does not want anything from anybody, self-satisfied, from that, one can actually give. That is the road map. We are going to flesh out those points. That’s where we are going here, hopefully.

Another example of being cheated, because we have to realize all of this, I am speaking to myself of course! To remain fixed we have to avoid the siren call of the material nature, calling us onto the rocks.

I was traveling recently to the Caribbean, for preaching don’t worry! I was in the New York airport. The signs in the airport say, “Going Nuts in this place? Noise, confusions, lights and harassment? Go to the Caribbean!” And it showed a beautiful pristine island, two footprints on the sand, tranquil water. “Go to the Caribbean!” Looks good doesn’t it?

When you arrive at Puerto Rico, in the airport there is a big sign: “Going nuts on this tiny island with nothing to do? Go to New York! Bright lights, action.” So I was thinking, “Ok. That is about three thousand miles. Half way is Atlanta. At 30 000 feet above Atlanta is that happiness? Because I missed it! It wasn’t in New York and it wasn’t in the Caribbean. So the expectation and result, we should see how we are being cheated.

I was also thinking, when I was a kid, I was the youngest in my family, I wanted to go to school like anything. It looked like so much fun! So I got there. After a couple days, I was looking forward, I wanted to get out of the house. I wanted to go to school. Couple weeks at school, “Been there, done that!” I wanted to go home and play. Oh no! You’re strapped on for at least another six years in elementary school! I thought, “Oh! Nobody told me that!” But then I thought, “Okay. I will do my six years and then I get to go to junior high school. Middle school. Sports, football, that will be fun!” So I put in my six years, went to middle school, got into high school. First game, I broke my collarbone! That was out.

So that was okay. I put in my four years in high school then I go to college. Get away from my parents, they send money and don’t come. I will have a fantastic time. But then you talk to anyone whose first year in college, they love it. When you talk to them in their last year of college they say they want to get out into the real world. “When can I get out, when can I graduate?”

When they get out, what do they want to do? They want to work their way up the cooperate ladder. They are looking forward. “In the future I will be happy!” Prabhupada gives the example when they were in Dai Nippon when they asked the young executive, “What is your goal in life?” Tamal Krishna Maharaj told me that story. Prabhupada completely blew their mind with the business offer. The senior executives step out the room sort of “What had just happened!”

The junior executive was there just as a minder just to sit there and watch. But they asked him? What is your goal in life?” Prabhupada asked. He didn’t speak much English. So everyone had handed out their business cards. He took all the business cards of all the other executives put it in a nice stack and then he very ceremoniously took his card out and put it on top. That was the goal, to get to the top of the corporation.

I remember my father, he wanted to get to the top of the corporate ladder. When he actually got there what did he talk about, how he was going to retire and when he retired what did he talk about? “Oh when I was in elementary school, oh when I was in high school then I was happy! Oh when I was young, starting out in business then I was happy.” Same thing! He spent his whole life looking forward and then for whatever was left he spent looking back. When was he actually happy?

So expectation and result! This is what we are dealing with. We soldier on with the idea that, “Well I am struggling, I am getting kicked in the head but everybody else out there is making it. I am just the one who can’t get it together. If I just keep trying in a different way or new way I will become happy.”

Prabhupada gave an example that the farmer is working hard in the field and the farmer is thinking, “If I could just become a merchant. He is just sitting there all day, buy-sell, buy-sell! I lug everything in, I grow it, I lug it into town but he just sits there! Someday if I can become a merchant!” And what is the merchant thinking? “Oh I have to worry about profit going up and down in the market, loss and gain! If I could just be the king! The king just sits there and everybody does what he wants. If I could just become the king!” And what is the king thinking? The king is thinking, “All the pressure and the duties of the state! If I could just be a simple farmer just growing some crops!” You follow? It is typical. Who is actually happy?

Prabhupada gives the example that the donkey is working hard all day long after straw. India is wonderful because all these examples come to life. You see the donkey loaded up with all the bricks, loaded up with all the laundry or whatever it maybe. I actually saw a donkey, all you could see was the nose and the tail and the bottom of the legs. The rest was just covered. And the guy was whipping it. And why is he working? Just to get a little bit of straw, a little bit of grass. Prabhupada points out that straw and grass is growing on both sides of the road but he thinks, “If I don’t work I will never get it.” Prabhupada said our happiness is there. Prahladananda Maharaja said that our happiness is coming automatically just as stress is coming and yet we are caught on this treadmill of expectation and result!

We live in a bizarre abode. We should understand where we are situated. Actually I read this the other day. Just as example of how bizarre it is. We were talking about the donkeys. Do you know that more people worldwide are killed by donkeys than in plane crashes?

I come from San Diego. We have the potential of earthquakes, fires, tsunamis, tidal waves and drive-by shootings. So what is this place? Prabhupada said according to Bhaktivinode Thakur that this is a bizarre abode. Prabhupada gives the example of the camel chewing the thorns and it is an interesting phenomena. You know the camel chews the acacia or whatever, the leaves taste nice but it has got all the thorns and it is cutting it’s mouth. And the camel thinks, it never puts the sequence of two and two together, the camel thinks, “The leaves taste great. Somehow or the other my mouth hurts. So I will wait until my mouth feels better and then I would come back and snack on the leaves.” It doesn’t understand that the leaves are the source of its pain because the thorns are there. It never puts two and two together.

In the similar way the living entity goes on and on in this world without ever putting two and two together. So this sense of once you have a backbone, one should say no to the material nature, “I have been cheated so many times. Not again! Not this life. No.”

With that strength Prabhupada describes it as brahma bhavana - the weapon of renunciation, weapon of brahma, knowledge of Brahman. We should think that, “I am meant for bigger things.” We are not meant for the paltry pleasures of this world. We are eternal parts and parcels of the Supreme Lord. We are meant to be sporting with Krishna. This is what we are meant for.

You know what a kaleidoscope is? Have any of you seen a kaleidoscope? Just like the scientists, they claim to be cold, (Because we are going to be talking about sankhya yoga. That is the progression of this chapter.) The scientists talk the cold analysis. This is their presentation, just the facts, breaks everything to its component parts, smallest units and cold analysis. Actually the devotee is the only one who does that.

Take the example of the kaleidoscope. Kaleidoscope, you look through it and it creates beautiful pictures. You know what I am talking about? Anyone here ever take apart a kaleidoscope? I did it, because it makes like a stained glass window right? Beautiful pictures! What is inside a kaleidoscope? Sistine Chapel? You got three mirrors and some little chips, plastic chips, plastic paper, whatever it is!

I was thinking it is like the three modes of material nature and the various sense objects. Everything is refracted to the three modes of material nature. You combine them in a different way and you see all the beautiful things of this world. But really all that it is, is eating, sleeping, mating and defending. That is all that it is. All that it is is the twenty-four elements of the material nature and it is just combined by the modes of material nature and we think it is a beautiful picture. What is it really?

One who has that picture of this world he could become detached. Prabhupada gives the example of the Gordian knot. This is a folk law; I don’t know the history, but Prabhupada quotes it so we can say it. Alexander the Great coming down into the Hindu Kush into India and there is a path there, that you only have to go single file, that is the theory. And with just a few soldiers you can stop the whole thing from shooting down.

So there was one local king and he had this huge knot and he said, “Anyone who can untie this knot, then you can pass. You have to accept my challenge. If you want to go through here you have to untie this knot. If you untie it you can go through. If you can’t untie it then you have to let me kill you.” And there was a stack of skeletons, unsuccessful previous attempts.

Alexandria the Great took up the challenge. Anyone know what he did? (Prahladananda Maharaj indicates he does know.) With one fell swoop he cut through it. Just like if you have a big knot and you pull the string, it just gets together and tighter. Everyone is trying for some mundane solution to the problems of this world but there is no solution. The only solution is knowledge of Brahman, that I am not this body; I am not of this world. Happiness does not lie on this plane. With that knowledge one can cut right through it.

There is a progression that we’ll get onto in further verses but Prabhupada says that that sort of knowledge, that brahma bhavan, comes about by the association of devotees. Only by the association of devotees can the hard knot in the heart be cut. And Prabhupada says, “What is that association? That association is the instructions of the spiritual master.”

What are those instructions? Prabhupada gives, in Bhagavad-gita, 2.41, vyavasayatmika buddhir, Prabhupada says in the purport that Visvanath Cakravarti Thakur has given us the secret for advancement in spiritual life. That secret is one pointed fixed intelligence, fixed aim, one goal in life - to execute the order of the spiritual master. Prabhupada quotes in the last verse of the Guruvastakam prayers, Prabhupada also says that for one who has implicit faith in the spiritual master, all the purports in the Vedas are revealed.

The simple point I am trying to make is if we realize we are being cheated, if one wants to cut the hard heart in the knot in the heart, one has to take up the orders of the spiritual master. There are two doubts for being absorbed in the mission of Caitanya Mahaprabhu. There are many but let’s take two of them. To take up the mantle of being part of the Krishna consciousness movement, to carry some of the weight of the preaching mission, one of the doubts is how am I going to get my capatis buttered. How am I going to be taken care of? What about health care? What about my teeth when I am eighty? How is it all going to go on?

Prabhupada quotes Canakya Pandit. Canakya Pandit says, “As soon as the baby comes out of the womb, the mothers’ breast fills with milk.” And he gives that example that if Krishna is providing for every living entity, He won’t take care of a devotee that is surrendered to the preaching mission?

Radhanath Maharaja told me a very blissful story the other day and he said I could use it. So here goes! There was that Taj Hotel where the terrorists attacked. They were fighting in there for three days, complete carnage. The terrorists had arranged in such a way that they would always be up higher. They would shoot from a lower vantage point down. Radhanath Maharaja told me this. They had all these grenades and they would throw the grenades and the grenades would create so much smoke that if you were down looking up you couldn’t see anything.

Picture that you are one of these soldiers or police officers and you are in this cloud of smoke and up above you there is this hail of bullets from the terrorists shooting at you. One of those soldiers was one of our devotees. At one point, they were trying to chase these people through the hotel. They are trapped. The terrorist were throwing all these grenades, they are in a complete cloud of smoke. They cannot see one foot in front of their face. They can’t see left, right or anything and this hail of bullets is being fired at them. Just a wall of bullets coming at them.

This devotee police officer, with two other police officers on either side, he is in the middle, he actually was completely helpless. He couldn’t see left, right, he couldn’t see his colleagues. He remembered that he had on his ring tone on his phone Nrsimhadeva prayers. He began playing the Nrsimhadeva prayers and praying intently to Lord Nrsimhadeva, “Please I am absolutely helpless. I am going to die. Save me, in an absolutely hopeless state.”

When the shooting stopped, the smoke cleared, his friend to the right and his friend to the left were completely killed, riddled with bullets and he was unscathed. In front of him, which he couldn’t see at the time, was a giant pillar. And because they were shooting at him the pillar protected him.

He thought, “Just as Lord Nrsimhadev came out of the pillar to save Prahlada He put a pillar here to save me!” So my point is, simple point is if we have that faith, “Oh, how will I be taken care of?” Krishna will take care of you, don’t worry. Let me give my life to the sankirtana movement.

Another hesitancy is, “If I become temple president, it will disturb my bhajan. How will I peacefully chant? So many worries.” I mentioned one time I was a temple president for fifteen years, solid. If you wonder why I’m half crazy and have gray hairs, every one of them has got a name on it, trust me! I was in the shower, and a devotee got on a milk crate and called in the window, “Badri, can I talk to you?” I said, “Prabhu, I am in the shower!” The devotee responded, “Oh, I don’t mind.” The idea that I might have a private life, few minutes, no it was off the map, you know?

The simple point I’m trying to make, this is the gift and it is the anxiety of the first generation of Prabhupada disciples, this sold out surrender to executing the will of the spiritual master, of Srila Prabhupada, to spread the Krishna consciousness movement all over the world. Hell or high water let me do that with my life. You meet old time devotees and they will tell you how sweet those devotees were. It is common thread. Why those days were so sweet was look how surrendered they were. Ye yatha mam prapadyante, as you surrender Krishna reciprocates.

So if one wants to cut that hard knot in the heart, if one wants to actually become happy, the secret to success is absorption in the mission of the spiritual master. Let me become.

This is what I was going to say, if we look at Srila Prabhupada, Prabhupada left Vrindavan and he came to the West, he was preaching in Moscow in the snow. Prabhupada one time was in London. They asked him, “Do you have a heaven or hell?” Prabhupada said, “In your Christian theology, you say hell is hot. For me, I say hell is cold.”

He didn’t like cold weather and yet here is Prabhupada preaching in Moscow. There is another tape that you can listen; Prabhupada is talking in San Fransico. Prabhupada is speaking very nicely, evening Bhagavad-gita class. You hear some crazed drug intoxicated person goes off on Srila Prabhupada, screaming and yelling. You hear Srila Prabhupada - coming from Vrindavan, absorbed in transcendental bhajan, seeing Radha Krishna in his heart, you hear Prabhupada stop, he says as an aside to himself, “It is the darkest of darkness.” Prabhupada came from Vrindavan to that place.

Prabhupada told the devotees, they said in New Vrindavan one time, we don’t even have time to read Bhagavad-gita. Prabhupada said, “You are living Bhagavad-gita.” I am not advocating, we tend to swing like a pendulum one or the other, but if one doesn’t have a balanced diet, one gets rickets. One grows in a deformed fashion. And there is the thread in our society; we have to be very careful that it does not become predominant.

If we lose this dedication to the preaching mission to executing the word of our spiritual master. What is that word? Wherever you go whomever you meet instruct him in the science of Krishna. If we lose that, it is not just you have got to go out and distribute books and put on festivals because that is the hard work of the Gaudiya Sampradaya. ISKCON is the labourer class of the Gaudiya Sampradaya. “You go out and do the hard work and we will enjoy our Vrindavan bhajan.” It is not that. That activity of preaching in and of itself it in and of itself a spiritual activity and it will give the greatest realizations. You have to do both. Just like Vaisesika is a fantastic preacher, but he also reads at least one chapter of Bhagavad-gita every day.

We had an ‘all you can eat” restaurant, prasadam, in San Diego and Brahmananda visited. Those of you who know Brahmananda may know where this story is going. But we had an ‘all you can eat’ restaurant. And after practically inhaling the on tray line, he came to the dessert section. And I was trying to save a few something for the next wave of people to come. We had, I think, one was shrikand, the other was some cake or something. When you went down the line and paid your ticket, you got one dessert, either or. So I was very tenuously holding out the two desserts and I said to Brahmananda, “Brahmananda, you can have either one, would you like the cake or would you like the shrikhand.”

He looked at me and said, “Whenever I asked Prabhupada should I do this or should I do that, he said do both.” And he took both. Prabhupada said, “Intelligence means the ability to balance opposing points within the mind.”(He repeats.) So we need to balance both points.

If one understands he is being cheated by this material nature and steps back and analyzes it for what it is and develops a sense of detachment. From that sense of detachment and absorption in service of the Supreme, one becomes self-satisfied. There was a devotee, I won’t mention his name, well, and he was engaged in some criminal activities. He was selling some herbal products, which did not have much medicinal benefit.

He came home one day and his house was surrounded by the police, so they knew what he was up to so he ran to a friends’ house. They police also surrounded the friend’s house. He thought, “They know me, they know my friends, what am I going to do?”

He saw, Hare Krishna Temple, “They’ll never look in there.” I was the temple president; we were a bit naive in those days. He showed up ten o’clock at night, “I want to join your movement.”

I said, “Do you know anything about us?”

He said, “No, no, no, but I want to become spiritual. I know it is a good thing”

I said, “Four regulative principles.”

He said, “No problem.”

So I said, “Ok, move in.”

He gave one condition, he said, “You know I am, I don’t really like to go out.” We had a compound, it was the Devasadan Mandir in Detriot, 2 acres, 3 acres whatever it is. He said I just don’t want to go outside the compound. Nowadays if we heard that a bell would really go off! We thought, “Oh, all right, he’s shy, no problem.”

The man lived in the temple, it is a true story, and after about six months, he came to me, “Badri, I want to share something with you.” I thought, “Geez, oh there goes an hour.” He told me his history but what happened he actually wanted to become a devotee. His heart had softened and he wanted to be a full-time devotee. He said, I have this thing hanging on my back. I want to go out and distribute books, I want to go out on harinam, and I don’t want to get the devotees in trouble. What do I do?”

I said, “Let’s just go to the police, we’ll tell them the truth. If you have to go to jail for a year, you just accept what falls on your head. Let’s just go and depend on Krishna.” So we went, we explained the story. He was interviewed. He was an honest man. They interviewed him how he was living as a monk and he told his whole life and they said, “Ok, you come back, you will have a hearing in two weeks.”

We were there in court. The judge was there making the decision whether he goes to jail for five years, what happens. And the person who interviewed him like probation officer or whatever it is began describing his life how he gets up at 3 o’clock in the morning, cold shower, vegetarian, no boyfriend, girlfriend and he went about half way through and the judge said, “Woah!! Better he stays there, it’s worse than jail.” True story and they let him go. Actually he was on probation for three years.

The simple point I am trying to make, they may not understand but there is a profound happiness. Again, Alexander the Great, Prabhupada says he comes to Hindu Kush, he comes to some ashram of some yogi and he says, “I am Alexander the Great.” He has some isvara bhava as a ksatriya king. He says, “Let me give you something.” And the sage, renunciate, he has got his little ashram, his flowers and he is sitting out in the morning, bathing in the sun. So Alexandria the Great says, “Let me give you something.” And the sage said, “Yes, you can give me something, move out of my sun!” In other words, you cannot give me anything you foolish chap. Just leave me in peace.

So we cannot give what we do not have. If we understand we are being cheated by this material nature and say, enough, and become absorbed in executing the mission of the spiritual master of the Krishna consciousness movement, the hard knot will become dissolved. We will become happy in this world and we will actually be able to do good for others.

I wanted to read a survey. Well let me do this. Prabhupada tells two stories about desire. A man is woodcutter. We have to learn to desire properly. That is my point and if channel all of our desires how to spread Krishna consciousness the mind will be flooded. Prabhupada said that there is no unemployment problem. No one will have an unemployment problem in ISKCON. If you simply make you mind dance about all the ways that one can spread this movement Krishna will flood you with good ideas.

Sivarama Maharaj told me one time that, “If you take risks for Krishna Radharani becomes your treasurer.” On that basis we started our new temple. I was telling Sivarama Maharaj we have a little balance to collect but that is another story.

Desiring properly. Like fire, fire can burn a house down or it can heat your house. Prabhupada’s story, a wood chopper, he is out in the forest, chopping wood, hard work, he sits down and leans against the tree and says, “I wish this wood would chop itself.” And lo and behold the axe floats through the air and begins chopping the wood. He says, “I must be sitting under a kalpa vrksa tree.”

So just to test it out, scientific analogy, he says, “Wood stack yourself!” All the woods stacks itself. Fantastic, so he says, “It is hot in the forest, I wish there was a nice canopy.” A huge canopy comes. “I can’t enjoy on my own, I wish all my friends and relatives were here.” Everyone was there. “Well we have to eat.” Immediately there is a banquet, musician dancers, and singers. It was all going on. Fantastic. Time flies when you’re having fun. A little unaccustomed to his new condition he thinks, “The sun is setting I am out here in the forest surely a tiger will come and eat me.” Tiger came and ate him because he desired it. Desire will ultimately consume us.

Prabhupada tells the other side of proper desire. A man was poverty stricken, blind and with no children and he is given one wish. Assuming you couldn’t wish for unlimited wishes and you wanted to solve three problems what would you wish for? Prabhupada asked this and the answer was you wish to see your children from the roof of your palace.

So Prabhupada made the point that if we simply desired to serve Krishna everything else would become satisfied. So I wanted to read this survey, and we will end here, just because it is interesting. I am reading this as reinforcement that we have made the right choice to join the Krishna consciousness movement, to give our life to the sankirtana movement, to take initiation, be a servant of our Guru Maharaja. We have made the right choice. Here’s why. I explained why but this is just material support.

There was a study to determine how to become happy in this world. MIT and Harvard combined together to determine what makes happiness. You think they would have studied this before, this is sort of a basic thing, but this is a recent study. And here is how they did it.

The average income in developing nations has increased five to eight times since World War One. Europe, Japan, USA the spending cash, of course now it has crash landed, say a year ago had increased five to eight times and yet they found that the happiness had not increased proportionately. Rather they found that there was a leveling off. Once people got their sustenance, got their chapatis buttered, they got their house taken care of and their car, you know the basic maintenance increases in money didn’t really make them happy.

The economist saw a pattern that they called the ‘focus of illusion’. I am going to move to San Diego and that move is going to make me happy. And why is it going to make me happy? They focus on “There is beaches, great weather; I will be playing sporting activities.” They think, “If I move to San Diego that is what I am going to do. “But what they find out is when they move they are rarely at the beach; rarely have time to go outside. And he had to accept a job he didn’t like. Or they think, “If I have this big house I will be happy.”

True story. My father bought a house by the beach, big beautiful house and his favourite thing was to watch the view. He had a chair and he would sit there and watch the beautiful view. He had a bay window so he could watch the ocean waves. But to maintain that house he had to live in Los Angeles and he had to drive up to LA and riding back and fourth, two hours sitting in traffic he finally decided that he had to get a place in LA. So he was really only in the house on weekends. Five days a week he was in LA.

We had a dog because in America you have to have a dog! What happened is that as soon as my father left the dog would jump on the chair and the dog would sit on the chair five days out of the week and my father would come back on Friday night and chase the dog out of the chair. He said, “I think that I live by the beach and work in LA. Actually I live in LA and occasionally I get to visit my beach house. What I really have is the most expensive doghouse in America. Because the dog is enjoying the view.”

So they have an expectation but what they really get is something else and we are all moving on like that. Here is the last thing. It says here the list of factors that actually comprise happiness, 60% of those things we don’t have control over but 40% of those things we have control over.

Here are the elements that even materially make people happy. One of the biggest sources of happiness is getting outside of one’s self, volunteering, helping others, working for a cause greater that our own little desires. Feeling that one’s life has purpose and making a difference. That is what actually makes people happy.

So if we can just absorb our life in the sankirtan movement that will actually make us happy. As Prabhupada’s Guru Maharaja said, “It will be good for him and good for others.” If we do it, it is good for us and good for others.

Thank you very much. All glories to Srila Prabhupada! (Applause)