Date: February 18, 2009
Verse: Srimad-Bhagavatam 3.24.1-3
Speaker: Praghosa Prabhu

maitreya uvaca
nirveda-vadinim evam manor duhitaram munih
dayaluh salinim aha suklabhivyahrtam smaran

TRANSLATION

Recalling the words of Lord Visnu, the merciful sage Kardama replied as follows to Svayambhuva Manu’s praiseworthy daughter, Devahuti, who was speaking words full of renunciation.

rsir uvaca
ma khido raja-putrittham atmanam praty anindite
bhagavams te ‘ksaro garbham adurat samprapatsyate

TRANSLATION

The sage said: Do not be disappointed with yourself, O princess. You are actually praiseworthy. The infallible Supreme Personality of Godhead will shortly enter your womb as your son.

PURPORT

Kardama Muni encouraged his wife not to be sorry, thinking herself unfortunate, because the Supreme Personality of Godhead, by His incarnation, was going to come from her body.

dhrta-vratasi bhadram te damena niyamena ca
tapo-dravina-danais ca sraddhaya cesvaram bhaja

TRANSLATION

You have undertaken sacred vows. God will bless you. Hence you should worship the Lord with great faith, through sensory control, religious observances, austerities and gifts of your money in charity.

PURPORT

In order to spiritually advance or to achieve the mercy of the Lord, one must be self-controlled in the following manner: he must be restrained in sense gratification and must follow the rules and regulations of religious principles. Without austerity and penance and without sacrificing one’s riches, one cannot achieve the mercy of the Supreme Lord. Kardama Muni advised his wife: “You have to factually engage in devotional service with austerity and penance, following the religious principles and giving charity. Then the Supreme Lord will be pleased with you, and He will come as your son.”

Praghosa Prabhu

I think I should first just make a quick comment and say that there’s a very significant absence of GBC members here this morning. They’re all participating in a different class. Today is the kind of spiritual team-building day and they’re all engaged listening to a class by Srila Prabhupada. So just to let you know, just in case everybody’s thinking that the GBC is in collective maya.

It’s a very wonderful part of the Bhagavatam, very wonderful pastime. And this particular section of this pastime Kardama Muni is reassuring Devahuti that she’s actually glorious, so glorious that the Supreme Personality of Godhead is going to appear from her, appear from her womb, very shortly. So sometimes as devotees we may get a little, we may have some insecurities, or we may feel a little mental, we get on the mental platform. So we can imagine that something that would completely remove us from that platform would be if we were to learn that the Supreme Personality of Godhead was going to be manifesting from us. So Kardama Muni’s reassuring Devahuti that she need not lament in any way, shape or form because that’s actually what’s going to happen very shortly.

Reading the second and third translations, and in the purport, this point about one must be self controlled and one must follow the rules and regulations of religious principles. Earlier, as part of this pastime, Kardama Muni makes the same point, that what use is human life if it doesn’t bring you to the point of practicing religious principles and what use is practicing religious principles if it doesn’t bring you to the point of renunciation, and what use is renunciation if it doesn’t bring you to the point of devotional service? So there may be many things that can help us to that end, but the end is to engage in devotional service at the lotus feet of the devotees and Lord Krsna.

So Kardama Muni, he’s described as a prajapati brahmana, and he’s actually, obviously, with Devahuti, Kapila Muni is going to incarnate, take birth, manifest, and Kardama Muni is giving the perfect example of grhastha life, the actual perfect example of grhastha life. The whole goal is that they will have in this case a son, who will be able to both protect and instruct the mother as soon as possible, and therefore Kardama Muni can leave home and he can engage fully in spiritual life like that.

So it’s very interesting. In that section Prabhupada talks about—and of course, I’m sitting here wearing white and I can see many other devotees in front of me who are wearing white, so presumably we’re all in the grhastha ashrama—so Prabhupada explains that if you’re in the grhastha ashrama and you’re having children, there are two types of children that you should aspire for. Actually, he doesn’t use the word aspire, he actually says (that’s my mellowing it down a little bit), he actually says that there are two types of children that you should have. And he describes them.

He says one is a ray of Visnu, and of course this is the situation here with Kardama Muni and Devahuti, they’re having Krsna as their child. So, I don’t know how many grhasthas sitting here in the temple room today are able to achieve that particular level, but then Prabhupada says the other type of child you should have is the child you are going to train and educate in Krsna consciousness. And basically that you’re going to have children that you’re going to take the responsibility for, but take the responsibility for them to become devotees of Krsna. And Prabhupada says in his very clear and unequivocal way that if you’re not going to do that, then there is no point in having children, you should not have children like that.

So as Prabhupadanugas, that’s what we should aspire for as grhasthas, that’s what we should aspire for. So there’s so much we can do before conception, and then while the child is in the womb. There are so many things that can be done in order to ensure as far as possible that from the time that the child is born, and you engage them and train and educate the child to become Krsna conscious, it’s a whole scientific process right from before conception.

In this particular case, we know that the marriage arrangement was very perfect, and was very carefully arranged like that. Kardama Muni was a brahmana, Devahuti was coming from a ksatriya background so Prabhupada explains that’s a good arrangement, but the other way around is not a good arrangement. So the kind of social and varnic implications are there, so we should also study those things and take guidance on things in relation to arranging the perfect type of marriage. So that’s one thing.

Then there’s also the parents, the parents took so much interest in the marriage of Kardama Muni and Devahuti. In fact Svaymbhuva Manu and Satarupa, they came from far away. They personally travelled and came to make sure that the husband for their daughter was going to be the right husband and they got into it in great detail, and then when they were sure that this was the right arrangement the marriage went ahead.

And Prabhupada explains, I’m not sure if it’s in this particular section, but he certainly gives examples of how that is an essential duty of parents for their children, that they should take great interest and take great care in the marriage of their child, whether it be the son or daughter they should take great care. And he critiques modern society and he says that, and we know any devotees here from the Western countries, they will know that the term “arranged marriage” has got all these negative connotations.

Once you use the word about “arranging” a marriage, this is something that strikes at the very heart of Western civilization as being abhorrent and obnoxious and outrageous and wrong and you know, dinosauric, and it’s kind of a very heavy thing. So Prabhupada critiques Western society and he says “they criticize in relation to arranged marriages, but what is their alternative? What is their alternative?”

And then he gives the example of one of their alternatives, is that the daughter at a young age, whatever age the daughter may be, she’s sent out to look for her own husband. And where does she go? Usually they go to—I’m showing my age a little bit here, I’m sure things have changed culturally in the meantime—but you know they go to discos. That’s what I used to go to when I was a teenager. I think they call them rave clubs now and different things, maybe they’ve moved on as well.

But that’s what they do; the daughter is sent out and these things always take place at what time? They’re at night time, so mode of ignorance time, dark. And again, being in a male body and understanding the male body, a male body that has no connection to Krsna consciousness, they go to these places in the dead of night and they dress up to make themselves look attractive and they go in, and you have any number: 10, 20, 40, 100, 200 males in there who, do they have the interest of this stranger girl that they’ve never seen at heart, are they looking to protect her, are they looking for a lifelong commitment? Absolutely not, you know they’re looking simply for sense gratification.

So Prabhupada critiques it like that: they criticize the parents taking responsibility, taking concern, taking care, taking a real interest in the marriage of their son or daughter. Why? Because they care for their progeny like that. So they criticize that, and their alternative is to throw the daughter into some kind of den of inequity, and then hope that somehow or another she’s going to find some upright, upstanding, you know, wonderful husband. It just isn’t going to happen.

Then other options are, options that Svayambhuva Manu and Satarupa didn’t utilize, are things like dial-a-date, and lovehearts.com or whatever it may be. So all of these things, all of these systems in modern society, what they lead to actually, and this is another important point, because the goal of the proper marriage arrangement is that you produce good progeny. In this case, the son to protect the mother, and also in this case to instruct the mother, but the idea is produce good progeny. If you go with the other system, the system of discos and dial-a-dates and all that kind of stuff, you don’t produce good progeny, you produce varna-sankara.

And of course, our modern Western society—not just Western I shouldn’t just limit it to Western society—our modern materialistic society is simply a factory, a production line, for varna-sankara and we can see as that production line is ever-more efficient in the production of varna-sankara progeny, society becomes more and more degraded and more and more fallen and problems arise.

So as devotees, our responsibility is to try to buck that trend and to produce children who are going to contribute positively to a Krsna conscious society. And then the reason why: in this case, this wonderful example, the first question—I’m moving on now—so when Lord Kapila was born and as soon as He took responsibility for Devahuti, Kardama Muni was able to leave. And I think the first question that Devahuti asked her son was:

nirvinna nitaram bhumann asad-indriya-tarsanat yena sambhavyamanena prapannandham tamah prabho (SB 3.25.7)

So she’s saying, “I’ve become tired, I’ve become tired and fed up of engaging with the temporary senses and simply becoming miserable.”

So that was Devahuti’s first question. So this is the goal of what we’re trying to achieve, to produce children—and of course, in our gurukulas here in Mayapur we have so many wonderful students and alumni who have come through the gurukula system who can actually do that, give instruction in spiritual life. So this was Devahuti’s first question and then Lord Kapila explains that you have to engage in the yoga that breaks, cuts your detachment both from happiness, sukha, and dukha, from both happiness and distress.

We must become detached from the distress in the material world, but also whatever happiness that we experience in the material world. And He explains that this is the highest yoga. There are so many forms of yoga as we know, but this is the highest yoga, to cut our detachment from the material world. And of course this principle of detachment and cutting it is such a profound thing.

We see earlier in the Bhagavatam, in the first canto, the example of somebody who’s very attached to material life and then examples of personalities who are very detached, and the contrast couldn’t be more stark. We have somebody like Dhrtarastra who, after the battle of Kuruksetra, even though he was on the side that was trying to annihilate the Pandavas, after the battle of Kuruksetra he’s still so attached, he can’t actually detach himself from material life and prepare for leaving this world but he’s still living at the expense of the Pandavas, actually still living at the expense of the Pandavas.

And Vidura has to come, and he has to preach to him so strongly, really get on his case and preach to him very very strongly: “Look at you, you’re so old” and he gives all these different examples of when we can identify that we’re old, when the teeth are all loose like that. I heard something recently that you know you’re getting old when you sink your teeth into a samosa and they actually stay there. [laughter] But we shouldn’t actually wait to get to that stage! Because it’s quite embarrassing, particularly if you’re in company!

So Dhrtarastra was in this situation, where he may have sunk his teeth into a samosa and they would’ve stayed there. So we shouldn’t wait for that. So Vidura’s preaching very strongly “you must go”. But on the other side we have the example of Maharaja Yudhisthira, who when Lord Krsna had left, Maharaja Yudhisthira immediately renounced, as soon as he saw that the qualified person was there in Maharaja Pariksit to take up the administrative duties he immediately left all of the trappings of the throne, of kingly life, without a second thought. Of course, all of his life he was engaged in service to Krsna, so those trappings weren’t something that he was attached to and consequently when the time came it was very, very easy for him to leave them all behind.

So as devotees, this is the meditation that we must have, both in terms of creating a better society for everybody to live in, but also for preparing ourselves for when we also have to leave these bodies. So we have to prepare ourselves like that. Prabhupada quotes Prabhodananda Saraswati when he says eve vihaya durat, that when we come to devotional service and even while we’re in devotional service in a mixed stage, we come with thoughts that we’ve been fed for millions of lifetimes like that.

We know this example, I always find it quite an amazing example of the devotee who supposedly actually left Krsna consciousness simply because he couldn’t accept that the Americans hadn’t landed on the moon. So all of the instructions of Srila Prabhupada, and also having the benefit of Srila Prabhupada’s vapuh association—still, because of your conditioning, your material conditioning, and your for whatever reason, our acceptance of governments and media and people and entities like that, we would actually leave Krsna Consciousness as a result.

So this quote from Prabhodananda is eve vihaya durat. that when we come to Krsna consciousness, and even when we come and we haven’t done this, we should try, well the phrase used is “kick out everything”, kick out all of this previous education that we’ve been given, these previous concepts that we’ve been given, these previous misconceptions that we’ve been given; just remove them all from the mind and start with a clean slate and allow our education to be coming from the acaryas: Bhagavad-gita, Srimad-Bhagavatam, Caitanya-caritamrita.

I know for myself I joined the Hare Krsna movement in my early 20s and even still now, even still now, I can quote you even though it’s like 27 or 28 years ago, full LPs of certain bands like that, because that’s what I learned in my younger years and they’re embedded in the mind. How much better that that would all be kicked out, all of that would be removed and you would be able to fill your mind with all these slokas from Bhagavad-gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam and all these pastimes, how much more wonderful that would be.

So as devotees this is what we have to do. Also in this part of the Bhagavatam Kardama Muni gives the instruction this is the process we have to follow because we can only approach Krsna with purified senses, so these senses that we have, we have to purify them through the process of devotional service to ultimately bring us to the stage that we can take shelter of Lord Krsna’s lotus feet.

So attachment, detachment. We’re devotees, we need to practice the principles of detachment and become detached from all of these attachments that we actually have, because they can lead us into extraordinary places. Attachment, it’s actually frightening if we don’t first understand it, take control of it, and then actively work to become detached, it can lead us to extraordinary places.

When I was thinking of Dhrtarastra, as a Vedic example if you like, I was also thinking of a non-Vedic example of about 30-odd years ago from where I come from. You may be somewhat familiar, but there used to be some trouble in Ireland between the North part and the South part. Anyway, without getting into all the details, the people that wanted what they considered liberation, they wanted the British to leave Ireland they grouped themselves together and called themselves the IRA, and any of their activities that they did if they were caught, they were put into prison because they were bombing and shooting and all of these things.

So lots of them were in prison. But they didn’t accept that they were criminals, they considered themselves freedom fighters, that they were fighting for the liberation of their country. So they wanted the British government to acknowledge that they weren’t just common criminals, but to be considered political prisoners, this was their issue.

Now because of this attachment, as Prabhupada explains the first attachment is to our body and our mind, and then the attachment extends to our immediate family members, and then our extended family members, then maybe our community, and then our country. And as we know in the world, nationalism is such a scourge actually, nationalism is the cause of so many conflicts like that. So nationalism, these people wanted the liberation of their country, what they saw as their country, they were born there.

And just for this one detail, for their status to be changed from criminal to political prisoner, some of them decided to go on a hunger strike. And of course as we know from Bhagavad-gita, these kind of sacrifices are very much in the mode of ignorance and the mode of passion. But they were so attached to what they were trying to achieve and so attached to their body and their place of birth that I think 13 of them actually died, in prison, on these hunger strikes, just to achieve that end.

So this is where attachment can lead. Sometimes we may casually think, “Well I’m chanting Hare Krsna, I’m engaged in devotional service, I’m associating with the devotees, I don’t really have to think so much about these other things, I’m kind of protected, I’m safe.”

But we always have to be working, progressing. It’s very hard to stay static in spiritual life, if not impossible. So it’s either you’re moving forward or you’re moving backwards—and once we start to move backwards, that backwards never stops in terms of where it can actually lead us.

So we have to become convinced in this process of Krsna Consciousness, as Prabhupada would say we should be afraid of maya, we should be afraid of the material world. And when we’re convinced of that, that we’re afraid of the material world, then we have to be convinced that this process is the process that can free us from the clutches of maya and the clutches of the material world. And when we’re actually convinced of that particular point, and engaged in devotional service, then the natural thing that follows is we want to give that information, give that to other people.

Prabhupada describes how you cannot actually call yourself a Vaisnava, or devotee of Krsna, unless you have a real desire in your heart to give Krsna consciousness to others. It’s like the two things are intrinsically interlinked, you cannot separate them. For us to be devotees, there has to be a real desire that we’re giving this knowledge and Krsna to other people.

There was another story that I heard that happened many years ago, it may even have been as much as 20 years ago, but it was in America, I think it was in Texas somewhere, and there was a small church and there was a preacher and he had a small congregation and he would preach to them every Sunday or whatever it was.

And one Sunday when he was preaching some gunman came into the church and he started shooting. And he shot I think 5 or 6 of the actual congregation in the church. So it was a crazy, chaotic scene and ambulances were called, police and the whole thing. After a few weeks, when things had quietened down and things had settled down and the church had gotten back into its regular program, the preacher again on a Sunday was preaching to the congregation, those who hadn’t been shot or killed, and he actually made the point which is so much in line with our philosophy and our process. He made the point that we should not blame, and we should not hold any hatred in our heart for that particular gunman who came and shot some of our friends and family. We should not blame and we should not hold hatred in our heart for them, because if we were doing our job properly, there would not be gunmen like that. There would not be people with hatred in the heart that they would come and do that.

So in the same way, as devotees, we shouldn’t hate people who are absorbed in maya. Prabhupada said “hate the sin and not the sinner”, so we should never hold hatred, we should never blame those people who are engaged in heavy materialistic activities. Rather, we should see, just as Lord Nityananda did and Haridas Thakura did, we should see that that’s a lacking in us and an opportunity for us to give people Krsna and bring people to Krsna consciousness.

In relation to the class that’s taking place today for the GBC members, we were looking for one particular class, one particular conversation actually, that Prabhupada gave—I say this many times when I’m speaking, we were in London recently and Badrinarayan Prabhu was giving class and he told some pastimes of Prabhupada that I hadn’t actually heard before. Whenever you hear, whenever I hear, these pastimes of Prabhupada, they’re just so incredible, they’re just so enlivening; the depth of knowledge, the sharpness, all of these different things that Prabhupada had, they’re incredible…

So there’s two things I wanted to mention. One thing was the class: so we were looking for this one conversation that Prabhupada had, and the title of it was, he was talking with his GBC devotees, and the title was “Are you Convinced?” In other words, are you convinced of Krsna, are you convinced of the Krsna conscious process, like that. Because if you’re convinced, so many incredible and wonderful things can happen.

Just before I give an example of that, one quick thing: Prabhupada was once asked—and this is people who aren’t convinced, people who perhaps don’t even want to be convinced, this is their thought process—Prabhupada was asked one time by I think a reporter, he was giving some talk and then he asked for questions and the reporter asked him a question. And this is a question I would imagine virtually every one of us have been asked in our time as devotees. I’ve been asked it many times actually; I give a lot of talks to secondary schools in Dublin and it’s a regular question that I get asked. So the question that Prabhupada was asked was, “Oh yes, it’s all very well, the Hare Krsnas, etc., but the one problem is you have to give up so much.”

And of course they’re referring to illicit sex, intoxication, gambling, meat-eating, etc. etc. etc. That was the inference, they didn’t spell it out, but that was the inference. “Yes, Hare Krsnas are nice but the problem is you have to give up so much.” And Prabhupada’s immediate answer was, “the only thing we give up is suffering.” The only thing we give up is suffering. So, the questioner is thinking “Wow, giving up meat-eating, intoxication, gambling, etc., wow, how hellish. Imagine a life without those things!”

And can you imagine a life without those things? Because if you look at the High Street of any city particularly in Western countries and I’m sure it’s similar now in the Eastern countries, but particularly in Western countries—if you look at any High Street and you walk down it, if you take out the pubs, and that includes the restaurants because they all serve alcohol and meat, if you take out the supermarkets that all sell meat, and the butchers, you take all those out,if you take out all the shops that are associated with the sex industry, and if you take out all the bookmakers, you know the gambling shops—if you take out all those shops you practically have ghost towns. They practically become ghost towns, there’s practically nothing else on these High Streets like that.

So everybody’s thinking like that: what a hellish life without engaging in illicit sex, gambling, meat-eating, intoxication, but when Prabhupada was asked the question “It’s OK but you have to give up so much”, he responded “The only thing we give up is suffering”. And why is that Prabhupada’s answer? Because he’s completely convinced and understands that engaging in those activities leads to suffering. For the non-devotee, he’s thinking that engaging in those activities leads to bliss, but for Prabhupada engaging in those activities leads to misery, just leads to suffering. So the only thing we give up is suffering. But this principle of being convinced, Prabhupada really wanted his devotees to be convinced because you can actually achieve so much.

I just want to finish with one story, a true story, that happened very recently and some of you may have heard it, but if ever like Devahuti was lamenting here a little bit and remorseful and Kardama Muni was reassuring her that you’re a wonderful personality, you are praiseworthy, you’re glorious, you have nothing to worry about. You’re just about to give birth to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. So obviously that’s a very nice thing to convince us that we don’t have to be on the mental platform or be worrying. So sometimes in this wonderful verse from Bhagavad-gita:

etam vibhutim yogam ca mama yo vetti tattvatah so vikalpena yogena yujyate natra samsayah ( Bg 10.7)

To those who are convinced, who are actually convinced, of Me, and by being convinced of Me by all this opulence and mystic power… Krsna creates this material world with a little glance. That’s all He does, He just glances and this whole material world is created.

So hands up in the audience, who accepts Krsna as the Supreme Personality of Godhead?… Only one person didn’t, can you stand up that one person who didn’t?… (joke) So everybody is accepting Krsna as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. So Krsna says, “to those who are factually convinced of this opulence and mystic power of Mine, they will engage in unalloyed devotional service, of this there is no doubt.” So hands up, those of us in the audience, who are engaged—and “unalloyed” was the word I think Prabhupada took from the side of some truck when he arrived in America—but unalloyed means pure, or ahaituki apratihata: unmotivated, uninterrupted, pure, cent per cent, 24/7 devotional service.

So all of those today sitting here, can you put up your hands who are engaged in unalloyed devotional service to Krsna? We have one person—jaya! Okay, that’s very reassuring! We have one person. So you all accept that Krsna is the Supreme Personality of Godhead, but then none of you, out of your humility, are putting your hand up to say that you’re engaged in unalloyed devotional service. But Krsna says if you are convinced of Him, that is what you will do. You will be engaged in unalloyed devotional service.

So there’s a gap there, between what Krsna’s stating and where we’re actually at consciousness-wise. So it’s nice for us to be reassured sometimes. Often times we have the thought, wouldn’t it be wonderful if Krsna just came and appeared before us, then all of our doubts would go. Of course Krsna has appeared, He appeared 500 years ago, appeared 5000 years ago and actually it didn’t get rid of everybody’s doubts; some people still didn’t accept Krsna. But it’s nice to be reassured.

So I’ll just finish on this story because time is coming to an end. It happened very recently, within the calendar year, and there was one devotee distributing books. As we know, distributing books is a service, if any of you have distributed books, particularly street distribution, it’s a service where you really need to depend on Krsna. There is a tendency to become maybe slightly more mental than you normally become when you’re just in the temple associating with devotees. You’re out on the front line; people don’t care if you’re a guru, or sannyasi or GBC or a temple president, that’s totally irrelevant to them. You’re just a person who looks like you’re going to harass them on the street, and they don’t want to be harassed.

So this person was distributing books and he went into a business park, where you go in and there’s lots of different businesses and offices like that, and generally we’re not really allowed in those places. This was in Holland by the way, in the UK they’re a little more liberal but I think on continental Europe they’re a little more strict. So he went in and he knew he shouldn’t really be there but he was going around, went around one or two of the offices. And one of the offices rang the security, you know devotees are expert at slipping in and missing security.

Just like here in Mayapur we have these beepers just here at the temple courtyard entrance, and I quite often notice that people walk through them and they beep, and the security guards just let them walk on, and I’m thinking I don’t know how much those beepers cost, but you don’t really need them! Anyway, so devotees are expert at slipping through security. So this devotee slipped through security, went to one or two offices, and obviously one office rang security and was like, we have an intruder on our patch. So the security guy starts looking for the devotee, and he saw the devotee and the devotee saw him. I don’t think I would’ve done what this devotee did but it’s good that he did this because the rest of the story unfolds as a result.

But anyway, the devotee was like, here just like at Radha Madhava’s altar and the security guard’s here over at where Srila Prabhupada is, so there’s a good gap between them and they catch each other’s eye. And you know that moment when the security guard is like, “Ah, gotcha” and the devotee’s like, “Oh my God”.

So the devotee starts to run, which is the worst thing to do actually, but anyway he chose to run, and the security guard’s running after him. And the devotee’s got of course a box of books which doesn’t help, but anyway he’s running this way and that way, and then he realizes he’s run into a dead end. It’s like a wall or a fence and it’s like uh uh, you know. And he’s waiting for the security guy to show up after him. Anyway, you’re in that situation and even though you know it’s a dead end, you want to get away from this guy so you have momentum, you’re still running and you know there’s a fence or a wall but you think that you can at least get to it and touch it, just to make sure it’s real and then you have no escape.

So he runs, and just as he’s coming to the dead-end, he notices on the left there’s a door and the door’s just slightly open. He thinks “Wow, thanks Krsna!” So he opens the door and runs in, closing this door behind him and hoping the security guard won’t suss it out, and it’s kind of a dark corridor. But at the end of the corridor, he sees a little bit of light, so like a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel. So as he gets closer to the light he hears a little bit of noise and people speaking and sound, so he slows down because he doesn’t know what he’s coming into, and the security guard doesn’t look like he’s behind him.

So he gathers himself, composes himself for his next challenge. So he gets just to where the light is and he’s all ready now, and just as he walks, it’s a stage that he’s walking onto, there’s a guy on the stage he’s got a microphone etc. and the guy on the stage notices him walking onto the stage and the guy with the mike says, “Ah, fantastic, we thought you weren’t going to arrive! Wonderful! You’re just in time because we’re about to give out the prizes.”

And of course the devotee has this box, and of course the box is full of Bhagavad-gitas! And so he’s thinking “Do these guys know that these are Bhagavad-gitas? Anyway, it’s better than getting caught by the security guard!” Suddenly he was a celebrity and was being wanted by everybody. Because this guy’s on stage and there’s a couple of hundred people in the audience and the devotee’s thinking, “Well, I’ll go along with this, it’s the best option I’ve got.”

So the guy says, “Mr. Hans van Hoegel, please come up for your prize.” So Mr. Hans van Hoegel comes up and the MC says please give him his prize, so the devotee takes out the Bhagavad-gita and says, “Thank you, Mr. Hoegel, congratulations.” And Mr. Hoegel looks at the Bhagavad-gita and says “Jaya”, no, he didn’t really say Jaya but you know.

And he walks off the stage and he goes through this process about ten times with people who’ve won this award and that award, this award that award, and then the devotee, all his books are gone, the award ceremony’s over, people are intermingling with each other and the MC comes up and he says, “Thank you very much, we thought you were never going to arrive here, but you arrived just in time. By the way, how much do I owe you for the prizes?”

And the devotee says “Well, about 500 euros should do.” And the guy takes out a chequebook and gives it to the devotee and the devotee’s just about to leave, and just as he’s leaving he was thinking, “Wow, wasn’t that wonderful! Half an hour ago I was being chased by this security guard, I hadn’t distributed one book, now half an hour later I’ve distributed all my books, I’ve got 500 euros, I’ll go back to the sankirtan team and they’ll be all in ecstasy.”

So just before he leaves, he says to the guy, “I’ve forgotten, by the way, what was the awards ceremony?” And he says, “Oh, it was the Annual Butcher’s Convention of Holland.” [laughter] So, if we need to be convinced in Krsna and Krsna consciousness, Krsna can do anything wonderful—no one knows the plan of the Lord, so you may be asked to give Bhagavad-gitas at the next Butcher’s convention of Holland!

Srila Prabhupada ki jaya!