F rom Sri Mayapur Chandrodaya Mandir
Date: February 12, 2017
Speaker: HG Narahari Das
Subject: Srimad Bhagavatam 7.10.5
TEXT
śāsāno na vai bhṛtyaḥ
svāminy āśiṣa ātmanaḥ
na svāmī bhṛtyataḥ svāmyam
icchan yo rāti cāśiṣaḥ
TRANSLATION:A servant who desires material profits from his master is certainly not a qualified servant or pure devotee. Similarly, a master who bestows benedictions upon his servant because of a desire to maintain a prestigious position as master is also not a pure master.
PURPORTAs stated in Bhagavad-gītā (7.20), kāmais tais tair hṛta jñānāḥ prapadyante ’nya-devatāḥ. “Those whose minds are distorted by material desires surrender unto demigods.” A demigod cannot become master, for the real master is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The demigods, to keep their prestigious positions, bestow upon their worshipers whatever benedictions the worshipers want. For example, once it was found that an asura took a benediction from Lord Śiva by which the asura would be able to kill someone simply by placing his hands on that person’s head. Such benedictions are possible to receive from the demigods. If one worships the Supreme Personality of Godhead, however, the Lord will never offer him such condemned benedictions. On the contrary, it is said in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (10.88.8), yasyāham anugṛhnāmi hariṣye tad–dhanaṁ śanaiḥ. If one is too materialistic but at the same time wants to be a servant of the Supreme Lord, the Lord, because of His supreme compassion for the devotee, takes away all his material opulences and obliges him to be a pure devotee of the Lord. Prahlāda Mahārāja distinguishes between the pure devotee and the pure master. The Lord is the pure master, the supreme master, whereas an unalloyed devotee with no material motives is the pure servant. One who has materialistic motivations cannot become a servant, and one who unnecessarily bestows benedictions upon his servant to keep his own prestigious position is not a real master.
Narahari das
First I
would like to say that I am very humbled and fortunate to be in the association of such wonderful vaisnavas, all in the family of Srila Prabhupada.I haven’t been to the dham in thirty-one years. I don’t know what I was thinking. Actually, I do know what I was thinking. I was thinking what I was actually preaching, which is true, that all of our temples are actually Vrindavan. You walk into a temple anywhere in the world and it’s the spiritual world. It’s the holy dham.Another point is that I live in Hawaii and the holy dham is really far. The fastest way to get here is probably to drill a hole in the earth or something, jump in the hole and I wouldn’t be that far away.
Suffice it to say, it’s wonderful to be here. Now I realize what I had misunderstood about the potency of being in the dham, Mahaprabhu’s madhurya dham, a place of infinite mercy. I guess I was really due for some mercy so the Lord let me come.
We are reading about Prahlad Maharaj. By the way, this part of the Bhagavatam is very dear to Mahaprabhu. Lord Caitanya would have the devotees the section about Prahlad Maharaj, which is not short. I haven’t checked it but it’s about ten chapters isn’t it? It’s a whole section of the Bhagavatam. When they would finally get through it, Lord Caitanya would say to read it again! And they’d get to read it again. Lord Caitanya loved hearing the pastimes of His perfect devotee Prahlad and Lord Nrsimhadeva.
In this particular section of Prahlad’s lila, Lord Nrsimhadeva is trying to bestow benedictions upon Prahlad. But Prahlad, having a completely pure heart, simply saw the benedictions as a distraction or as impediments in spiritual life. Therefore, he declined. Prahlad was teaching us the highest standard of devotion, to absolutely not want anything material, even if it’s from the Supreme Lord. He wanted nothing but to have his heart purified and always engage in loving devotional service.
It’s kind of interesting that Srila Prabhupada, the lion’s share of the purport, he’s talking about rejection of the benedictions that can be offered by the demigods. In the beginning he’s quoting “kāmais tais tair hṛta jñānāḥ prapadyante ’nya-devatāḥ,” which means that those whose intelligence is stollen by kama, or by lust, these people surrender unto the demigods. In the same chapter of Bhagavad Gita, Krishna also states that antavat tu phalaṁ teṣāṁ
tad bhavaty alpa-medhasām, that the benedictions that are offered by the demigods are antavat. Anta means end and vat means life. They all end. The fruits, antavat tu phalaṁ teṣāṁ and alpa-medhasām. So one who has alpa, meager, and medhasām, intelligence, this type of person will surrender unto the demigods.
No matter we get from the demigods, it’s never going to satisfy us. Not only that, but it’s temporary. And we are eternal. So temporary things do not do well for someone who is eternal. It’s as if somebody givesyou a gift and you turn around two seconds later and it just disappears. One may worship the demigod with the desire to go to the heavenly planets. Krishna tells us very clearly in the Bhagavad Gita that even after entering into the heavenly planets, when the pious activities that you have accrued have become exhausted then – It’s kind of like we will hear when it’s time to leave a country, when your visa runs out you are kicked out and have to go.
Srila Prabhupada was one time talking about Candraloka and somarasa. The devotees asked Srila Prabhupada, those of us old guys who were around in the sixties will appreciate this, what is the somarasa like? Prabhupada said that it’s like your LSD, only it works. Unfortunately we were thinking that maybe we should worship the demigods and go up there and get a little taste. But it never satisfies the soul. Not only can one obtain the heavenly planets, but even liberation. All of these things are rejected by the devotees.
One name for Lord Shiva is Muktinath. He can very easily get liberation. Even that liberation is false and temporary. One may be falsely thinking that he is liberated either by his not understanding the real purpose of life or impure intelligence. Even after all he endeavored to get there one once again he falls down.
There is a difference between leaving the impersonal platform and the heavenly planets. For the heavenly planets, when your time is up, it’s up. The difference is that with impersonal liberation you castay there as long as you want. There is no limit to it. But there is one problem with it why everybody leaves. Srila Prabhupada has explained to us that it’s not our constitutional position.
Our eternal position is to serve Krishna. That’s what we love doing.
The problem is that in that impersonal level of realization, because one has not obtained service to the lotus feet of the Lord, then out of his own desire he leaves. He’s bored. There’s no body to talk to up there. Even in the mundane world we like to talk. Imagine if there was no one to talk to, nothing to do. It is a face, we read in the Nectar of Devotion, that it is pleasurable, brahmananda, we can’t deny that. But even though that pleasure is infinitely beyond the heavenly planets, still it’s nothing compared to devotional service.
There is one verse in the Nectar of Devotion that says that even if multiplied billions and billions of times, the transcendental pleasure derived from impersonal brahman realization cannot equal an atomic fraction of a drop of the ocean of bhakti or devotional service. Why would one to engage in worshipping the demigods when whatever they get is going to be temporary and they’ll never be satisfied?
It’s important that we have a nice balance in spiritual life and understand the goal of where we want to go, look back at the material nature and see all of the frailties and faults. In fact, in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna tells Arjuna janma-mṛtyu-jarā-vyādhi-duḥkha-doṣānudarśanam. He tells Arjuna that you should see birth, death,old age, and disease. Of course, He is also giving Arjuna the highest instruction, but it’s important that we’re balanced and see why we want to get out of this material world and why we want to go forward to the spiritual worldIt’s kind of like the concept of the carrot on the stick. Does everyone know what that is all about? When I was a kid there was a show on television called The Little Rascals. How many people know The Little Rascals? If I got this right, there was a mule. Anybody ever heard of the mule’s name? Algebra. It’s funny. We can remember all of these useless mundane things but we can’t remember Krishna for a moment. But I can remember the name of a mule from when I was a child.
Who was the owner of Algebra? Stymie. One of the kids. Anyways, all of the kids were having a good old time. They hopped up on Algebra. To get him to go forward they used two things, a carrot and a stick. It was almost like a fishing pole. They had a long pole of some sort, something like bamboo, a little string at the end, and there was a carrot. It hung out in front of Algebra’s nose. Algebra would walk towards the carrot. At the same time they had a stick and you could see it. One of the kids was holding the pole out in front while another kid would hit him in the back. In that way he was moving forward.
It’s wonderful for us to hear all the glories of the spiritual world but it’s also wonderful to look back and understand why we want to get out of this material world. So that carrot and the stick applies well to us. Otherwise we may become cavalier about our spiritual lives.
It’s important to see the naked truth of this material world. Even our bodies – look at this predicament that we are in within this miserable body. Somehow or other we still think that it’s nice. It’s interesting that no matter what species of life one is put into by the conditioning, by the covering of maya, no matter what position we are in we think it is nice.
In the Puranjana story it is described that this physical body is the city of nine gates, Srila Prabhupada describes the body as the abode of pain. This makes perfect sense according to modern science. I remember back quite some time ago when I was studying neurology – there was a big poster on the board. It was showing mapped out all of the receptors for pleasure and all of those for pain. It had different versions, there was more than one poster up there. Some showed the outside of the body and some showed the inside of the body. It had different colors. There was one for the pain receptors and one for the pleasure. I believe that the pleasure ones were all blue and the receptors for pain were all red. I can still picture this in my mind, it was all red. A few little tiny drops of blue were there.
Now think about it. Where do we get some pleasure from this body? It’s so limited. There are a few sensors in the back of the throat. By the way you notice there are more and more concentrated the further back you go which is why when you eat something you want to swallow it. It gets better towards the back of the throat. The next thing you know, it falls off the cliff. It goes down the esophagus and then you have to eat some more. Our nose is so limited. If you smell a rose it smells great. But if you smell it over and over again it’s gone. You won’t smell it anymore. A little pleasure from the genitals. We can’t deny that one. There is a little spot on the body, you get a little pleasure there.
What about pain? Inside the body there is no real pleasure. But so much pain can come from inside the body. For example, does anybody ever wake up in the morning and you had something really wonderful planned for the day. Maybe it’s heading out to the beach, a good day planned with a picnic. But you wake up and your spleen feels so good that you just don’t want to get out of bed. How many people have had great pleasure from your spleen? Raise your hand. Liver? Kidney? But how much pain do you get from your kidney? Has anyone here ever had a kidney stone? One tiny little stone inside the kidney and you practically want to leave your body.
Even the outside. How much pleasure can I get from this earlobe? Not much. But how much pain can you get from it? You can burn it with a match. Or use electricity. It doesn’t get jaded. In face, the more you hurt it, the more it hurts. That’s this body. It’s not a great deal. All of our material pleasures deal with this body, so we want to move on from that.
Srila Prabhupada is mentioning Vritrasura. I should say a little bit about Vritrasura. There is a whole lead up as to how this story gets told. There’s a really interesting question that King Pariksit poses to Sukadeva Goswami. This is regarding the demigods. He asks the question, why is it that those who worship Lord Siva, who is a strict renunciate, they get great opulences? But those who worship Visnu practically live in abject poverty. Visnu is the husband of the Goddess of Fortune. It sort of does not make sense.
King Yudisthira, after performance of the ashwamedha yajna, asked the same question to Krishna, Himself. How did Krishna answer that question? Srila Prabhupada quotes the verse here that Krishna explained
yasyāham anugṛhṇāmi
hariṣye tad-dhanaṁ śanaiḥ
tato ‘dhanaṁ tyajanty asya
svajanā duḥkha-duḥkhitam (SB 10.88.8)
He’s saying that actually, when I give my greatest stroke of mercy, if you really want my mercy, it’s when I take everything away. I remove all impediments within ones spiritual life.
Didn’t Prabhupada quote this verse? When he was explaining about how his chemical business was failing, he was having difficulties in his family life, it seemed like everything was sort of falling apart and that Krishna was taking away. But He was actually paving the way for Srila Prabhupada to take sannyasa. Thankfully that all happened. If Prabhupada hadn’t had done that, where would we be? We certainly wouldn’t be sitting here. Where would this wonderful building be?
That taking away is Krishna’s greatest mercy. Queen Kunti actually adds the same idea as far as these material acquisitions. She says that taking a high birth in a wealthy family with opulence, high education, and a beautiful body, make one crazy. They make you go insane. We can even say that it’s not just if you have these things, but also if you want these things. It practically makes you more crazy. Once you get them you realize that it’s not so great. But if you don’t have them and you desire them – you want wealth, you want to look beautiful, you want a great education, it’s the same idea. We’re crazed because we become completely controlled and addicted to these things. They become locked in in our mind.
After Krishna revealed that, then the story of Vritrasura was told. Vritrasura wanted the benediction that anyone he could touch, their head would crack. You certainly can’t ask Krishna for this. So he turned to the demigods. In fact, he wasn’t sure which demigod to go to. He was impatient. He wanted that benediction and he wanted it now.
Sounds like the protesters, right? What do we want? To break the head. When do we want it? Now! He wanted it as quickly as possible. He didn’t know which demigod to approach.
By providence he was walking down a path one day and came into contact with Narada Muni. He thought wow, who better to ask than Narada Muni? He inquires from Narada, of all the demigods, which will fulfill my desire the quickest?
Now he’s asking the wrong guy because Narada is tri kala gya. Not only that, but he’s a real meddler. He likes to mess with things, especially when we are talking about the advent of Krishna. With anything that Narada Muni might do, he wants to speed up Krishna’s coming.
So he said, worship Lord Siva, he will give you whatever you want. He sited some examples. Just like Banasaura, he worships Lord Siva. Even Ravana, he told him. These are powerful dudes. So if that’s what you want, worship Lord Siva.
So he runs off and builds a big fire and starts cutting his flesh off. He offers his flesh, what an offering, yeah? I mean you give them something that you normally wouldn’t want to give. So he’s cutting the flesh off of his body. He did this for six days. I don’t think he was working an eight hour day. I’ve never seen any sort of artist rendering of what he looked like but by the end of six days there couldn’t have been a lot of flesh left.
Lord Siva never came. He was really frustrated. So on the seventh day he said that he was going to make the ultimate sacrifice. Not only am I going to offer my flesh, I’m going to cut my head off and offer that. So what does he do? He prepares himself. He takes his bath, he comes out still dripping wet, takes his chopper, ready to cut his head off – all of a sudden Lord Siva appears on the scene. He grabs his hand and stops him saying no no, don’t do that! I’ll give you whatever you want, but don’t do that. By the way, when Lord Siva touched him, his body came back whole again.
Lord Siva asked him, what benediction would you like? He said that he would like the benediction where anyone he touched, their head would immediately crack. Lord Siva is Gopesvara Mahadeva. He’s a great vaisnava. He did not want to give this benediction. But he was bound to because he was acting in the capacity of a demigod and he gave his word. He already said whatever you want I’ll give you. So he gave it to him.
What was the first thing that Vritrasura did? He went right to touch the head of Lord Siva because he wanted his wife Parvati. Isn’t that what materialist do? The more powerful they become the more they want to take from Krishna.
Lord Siva actually subscribed to the Bhagavatam. He was so afraid that he started shaking. He started running. He went to the mountains, he went to the valleys, he went up into the sky. Right on his tail was Vritrasura with his hands out ready to touch him on the head. He went to other planets. He actually went to Lord Brahma. Does anyone know what Lord Brahma told him? Nothing. He remained silent and wouldn’t speak. He was too afraid to say anything. He went to Lord Indra and it was the same thing. He wouldn’t say a word.
Finally in desperation he went to Svetadvipa which is a spiritual planet here in the material world. Visnu was there knowing what was happening, so He prepared Himself for this. He took the form of a very beautiful young brahmacari. He was wearing dear skin and had prayer beads in His hand. He had a water pot and a staff. He was a beautiful young brahmacari.
As soon as Vritrasura arrived, the two of them, immediately He begins to charm him with very sweet words. By the way, when Krishna wants to charm you, forget it, you’re going to get charmed. He begins by saying, oh dear son of shakuni, indicating that He knew his father very well. He begins to ask him what is going on, why has he come.
Vritrasura begins to explain what had happened, that he worshipped Lord Siva and he has this benediction. Krishna said wait a minute, you’re telling me that Lord Siva gave you the benediction that anyone you touch, the head would crack? Do you realize that Lord Siva is mad? He’s a madman! You can’t trust what he said. Look at him. He was cursed by Daksa to become a ghost. You’re going to trust what he said? You think there is any potency in his words? You think he’s a man of honor? Why don’t you test this thing to see if it actually works. If it doesn’t work, go after him and chastise him. Test it on yourself. Go ahead. By now he’s so convinced that it’s not going to work. He touches his head and his head cracks and that was the end of Vritrasura.
The idea is that it always comes to a bad ending when we worship the demigods. We want to become completely freed from any material desire at all. This is what Prahlad is teaching us. Our goal should be that we cleanse every molecule of material desire from our heart.
Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu set the perfect example of how to do this in the Gundica Temple. Lord Caitanya organized the devotees to clean that Temple. So we’ve got that Gundica Temple here and we’ve got to clean it, we’ve got to clean our heart. They were cleaning and sweeping the ceiling, the walls, the floors, getting all of the big pieces of straw and dirt and dust down to the finest little grains. Lord Caitanya was cleaning because He wanted to see Krishna. He was in the mood of a devotee and He wasn’t showing off or faking it or trying to set a good example, within His own mind He so desired to see Krishna. He was thinking, I’ve got to clean my heart. As He was cleaning, His pile was bigger than anyones.
After that was all done Lord Caitanya instructed them to then wash it with water. There were so many water pots coming, going, and colliding, sometimes they were breaking. They were washing the ceilings, walls, and floors.
That example is there. We have to be, in our spiritual life, completely focused, that our whole purpose is to clean our hearts. Just like Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, those who are on this path are resolute in determination and their aim is one. The intelligence of those who are irresolute is many branched.
We have to be totally focused, all of us, from morning to night in the purpose of cleaning our hearts so that natural love of Krishna will awaken.
In 2003 I watching television during the Iraqi war. It was interesting because this was right when they were invading Iraq. Now we were coming in to do the needful. There was one General who was speaking. Now a vaisnava will take gold from a dirty place, isn’t it? This General said something that stuck with me since 2003. It’s almost like a mantra that I remember all of the time. It’s very valuable.
He said, we have a saying around here in the army. That saying is that the most important thing is to keep the most important thing as the most important thing.
What’s the most important thing for us? To purify our hearts, obtain love of Krishna, and awaken that divine love within our hearts.
In sastra we have many examples of the crane. In Hawaii we have herons there, blue herons. They will stand in the shallow waters, often on just one foot. The crane will stare down at the water. They don’t move. They have this long beak like a spear. He’s watching all of the little minnows and various species of fish go by. But when he spots that perfect fish, the exact one that he wants, he nails it with his beak and brings it up. Focus.
Drona Acarya taught a very nice example about focus. He wanted to teach his students how important it was to remain focused. One day he took his students out to the forest. He had a-fixed way high up in a tree a wooden bird. It was almost impossible to see because it was so far up. But a few could see it.First he called for King Yudisthira because he was the eldest of the Pandavas. He instructed all of them that what he wanted them to do. If they can see the bird, take their arrow and aim it not just to shoot the bird but to hit the eye of the bird. I believe in some editions of the Mahabharata it’s described that they had to look into its reflection.
Yudisthira drew back his bow. Drona Acarya asked, what do you see? Yudisthira replied, Master, I see the bird. What else do you see? I see the tree, the leaves, the sky, I see you, Master. I see all of the other students here. Drona Acarya said, stand back.
He called next Duryodhana. Duryodhana drew his bow. Drona Acarya asked, what do you see? I see the bird, Master. What else do you see? I see the tree, the branches, the leaves. Drona Acarya said, stand back.
Ashvattama, come forward. Ashwattama draws his bow. What do you see? I see the bird. What else do you see? Nothing, Master. I only see the bird. Drona Acarya said, please describe the bird. He has feathers, Master. I can see his feet. Drona Acarya says, stand back.
Who does he call next? Arjuna. Arjuna steps forward and draws his bow. Drona Acarya again asks the question, what do you see? I see the bird. Describe the bird. I cannot. Actually I don’t see the whole bird. I see only his head. Then describe the head. Arjuna says, all I really see is the eye. Describe the eye. They eye is round, glistening. Drona Acarya said, go on. In the center of the eye I see a little black dot, the bullseye. Drona Acarya says, release your arrow! The arrow goes up and the bird falls down from the tree to the ground. The arrow is dead center in the birds eye. Perfectly shot. Focus.
So our focus should be on chanting the holy name of Krishna. Lord Caitanya has come and given us the ultiate gift, the holy name. Lord Caitanya said, jiv jago, jiv jago, gauracanda bole kota nidra jao maya-pisacira kole. Lord Caitanya is saying, wake up, sleeping souls! Wake up, sleeping souls! You’re sleeping in the lap of the witch called Maya. If you’ve seen a child in the lap of its mother, they feel very sheltered. But here we are lying in the lap of Maya! It may seem nice and we may feel sheltered, but it’s a witch ready to drink our blood.
Lord Caitanya says enechi aushadhi maya nasibaro lagi’, I brought the medicine to destroy the illusions of Maya. hari-nama maha-mantra lao tumi magi’. Please take it! I’m begging you to take the holy name! That holy name is so sweet.
One day Mahaprabhu was looking at a manuscript that was written by Rupa Gosvami. He was writing in this manuscript about the holy name. When Lord Caitanya saw this verse He fell into ecstasy. And what is that verse? tuṇḍe tāṇḍavinī ratiṁ vitanute tuṇḍāvalī-labdhaye (CC Antya 1.99). This is such a beautiful verse.
Tuṇḍe means the mouth. When we are chanting, it’s not just a sound. It is Krishna present. Tāṇḍavinī means dancing. He is dancing within our mouth. Ratiṁ means not just some boring dance, He’s Natabara. Krishna is performing the most beautiful and divine dance right in our mouths. Therefore we wish we had many, many mouths to chant the holy name. And then He says karṇa-kroḍa. So when we are chanting Krishna is dancing, but then that sound or Krishna within that sound enters the ear, karna. Karṇa-kroḍa is hole in the ear. Karṇa-kroḍa-kaḍambinī ghaṭayate karṇārbudebhyaḥ spṛhām. And when it enters the holes in the ears, we wish we had millions upon millions of ears to hear the holy name.
But it gets a lot better. Then He says cetaḥ-prāṅgaṇa-saṅginī vijayate, that when that holy name dances in the courtyard of the heart, it conquers the activities of the mind. That mind is the center of the senses. If you pull out the mind, the senses can’t act. Therefore He says sarvendriyāṇāṁ kṛtiṁ, that the senses become inactive. He goes on to say no jāne janitā kiyadbhir amṛtaiḥ kṛṣṇeti varṇa-dvayī. I cannot conceive how much nectar there is in this holy name. kṛṣṇeti varṇa-dvayī. In these two syllables, Krish and na, I cannot conceive of how much nectar is there.
So how fortunate are we that we’ve had bestowed upon us the holy name, delivered through this disciplic chain by Srila Prabhupada. He has come and brought this to all of us. How can we waste a minute? How can we waste a second to not take advantage of this nectar?
We have been here for billions of lifetimes, innumerable. What does innumerable mean? Let’s look at this word. We have been here for innumerable lifetimes. Talk about numerals. What are some of the big numbers that we know? Billion? Trillion? Quadrillion? Anybody know any zillionaires? How many zeros does a zillion get? A zillion means beyond numbers. It’s not a number. It is innumerable, what we have spent in this world.
Now we have the opportunity, by Mahaprabhu, to actually go back to Radha and Krishna. All we have to do is follow this process very strictly. And take Srila Prabhupada at his word. How many times have we heard that Srila Prabhupada said, simply chant your rounds, follow these four regulative principles, and at the end of this life you will go back to Godhead. How many people have heard this on a tape or personally?
Many people may think this isn’t going to work. After you do the calculations that, ok, I’ve been around for forty years. We’ve all made some advancement, if we hadn’t, we wouldn’t be in this room. We have all advanced, no question about it. But if you think wait a minute, I’ve got be completely pure.
I’ll take myself, for example. I’ve been following this process for about forty-four years. I don’t have a lot of years left. I’ve made a little advancement but I’ve got a long, long way to go. I may get a little more sincere yet, but I am trying pretty hard. Even if I tried twice as hard I’m still not going to make it by the end of this life.
It’s like a GPS. I’ll tell you a story. Once I was sailing to another island in Hawaii. It was about 72 or 73 kilometers away. We had no power, all we had were the sails. We were sailing to this pristine beach. I was taking a professor friend of mine who loves to hear about Krishna. So we were going to go camping. We headed out in the morning. By the way, the beach that we were going to you could not enter at night. It’s in the middle of nowhere and there are rocky reefs and surf on both sides. You have to be able to go directly in.
I checked before we left. I knew the time I would need based on the wind conditions. But when we got out to the channel, the wind conditions where good, but I could see by the GPS that we weren’t going to make it. We wouldn’t get there by dark. So we made the decision to turn back and go the next day.If you apply that same principle thinking that you’ve got too far to go and that you won’t make it, you have to remember one verse. The verse is from the tenth canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam and is spoken by Lord Brahma himself. By the way, he’s the head of our sampradaya.Srila Prabhupada loved to quote this verse. One who takes shelter at the lotus feet of Krishna, which are like a boat made of buds, of flowers, that ocean shrinks. Though it may seem impossible that we are going to make it, it’s going to hrink. It’s right there in our scriptures. We’ve seen so many of our godbrothers and godsisters at the end of their lives and how much mercy they got. They were just experiencing Krishna there in the end. We have to keep this faith.
I take Srila Prabhupada at his word that we simply have to go on chanting Hare Krishna, keep the association of the devotees and follow this very simple process. At the end of this life we are sure to go back to the lotus feet of Radha and Krishna.
Thank you all very much. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Recent Comments