kks lecture - bhagavad gita 4.31

8/14/2019 KKS Lecture - Bhagavad Gita 4.31

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KKS Lecture Bhagavad Gita 4.31 27/04/2007

(Eve of Vysa Puja)

Bhagavad-Gita As It Is, 4 th chapter, entitled Transcendental Knowledge , text 31: Nayam loka sty ayajnasya, kuto nyah kuru-sattama

Translation: O best of the Kuru dynasty, without sacrifice one can never live happilyon this planet or in this life: what then of the next?

Purport.A life of Krishna Consciousness is therefore the solution to all the problems of material existence .

Yes, a life of sacrifice, a life for the pleasure

of Krsna. In the Narada-Pancaratra we findthat description: sarvopadhi vinirmuktamucyate. It basically means that we work for the satisfaction of the senses of Krsna andnot our own senses; that we therefore dontworry about so many designations or different kinds of identity. Everyone islooking for some identity. In the car I waswriting something about that- in search of identity- because people in this world arealways searching out some identity. And its

because I read this article yesterday, aboutidentity, and it was saying that ones identity

is made out of what is stored in ones

memory and out of the influence from thesocial environment that one is in. Fine. So Iwas thinking a little bit about this and I wasthinking, Yes, well our memoryits true.I may remember I am from Holland- it addsto my identity- I may remember that I stayeda long time in Vrndavana- it adds to myidentity- I may remember that I speak somany languages- it adds to my identityandlike this, if you add up all the things weremember, it adds to our identity.


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Of course, in Sanskrit this is called upadhi ,this is called designation , these kind of identities. And it is stated that these upadhistheyre actually based on false identificationthat we identify with particular physical

situations. So people go through differentroles at different times of their life.Bhagavad-Gita also says,

Dehino smin...(whole thing)

That we go through these different stages of life and each one we have a differentidentity- quite different. I mean, I feeldistinctly different in my identity than I did30 years ago- quite different.

Some part of my identity may be the same but still the role that we play changesconsiderably with time. At present I play anice role, the role of sanyassi is pretty good-

probably the best role I ever played. Ive hadto play many parts so far: I had to play the

part of a school boy- I didnt like that at all!

I had to play the son of my father, and Iremember that he took me to a cloth store

and I had to wear grey pants with a creaseand he wanted to buy me grey sweater ontop- and I flipped!

I went on strike and I said, No, No, No! Iwill not have this grey sweater! It was agrey monster sweater with two little pockets

on the side- it was absolutely horrendous! SoI made such a stink that I got my mother onmy side and I was allowed to pick my ownsweater! And in revenge I picked a bright red one- as red as could get, you know!Shoo! So I remember many parts Ive had to

play and some I liked more than others. Butthen again, all these parts had their limitations because they were all material

parts. So material parts were alwaysimperfect. I was looking for a part that I

could really like and in that sense in searchfor identity, because I tried out differentidentities but they didnt really fit. I triedout hippie for a while!


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Of course you know, I was always a hippiewith some money in the bank! What I couldI do! My parents had some money sotherefore, although I was a hippie it wasntthat tough. Even when I would go to Greece

and live on the islands just off the fruits andthe tomatoes that we would steal from theorchards, still I knew that if it gets really

bad, I can always ring home and theyll sendme something. But it was more romantic justliving without money on the beach.

So I played all these parts for the sake of experience, for the sake of adventure, but inall of them there was really somethinglacking. Now Im playing this part of asanyassi and Im even playing the part of a

spiritual master.

I do a good dramatic performance; I raisemy hand and give blessings! Because I sawin the movies that thats what youresupposed to do! So I hope it works! Nottouching, just the rays! The rays are coming

out, dont you see! In the movies theresusually rays of light but whatever- theyrethere!So I play this part but Im not playing this

part just on my own; I dont play this partlike a kid who has dressed for an occasion inimitation- no I play my part. I play the partthat has been given to me, that is all. I playthe part that has been given to me by thevaisnavas.

Why am I calling it a part? Because in onesense, although I think this time I reallyfound my identity in this life as a devotee, inthis life dedicated to Krsna, in this life whereIm living for the pleasure of Krsna; I think its real and its what I really want to be.

Now Im happy in this life, this life of asadhu, because a sadhu is describedhisnature ishe is a persona sadhu is a

person who is sadava - thoroughly honest.Thoroughly honest- it really means that hehas some integrity in his heart; it means thathe cannot tolerate any falsity; it means hecannot accept anything but the AbsoluteTruth. But that also includes that he cannottolerate any falsity within himself becausethis is the paradox of the age of Kali; thateveryone in the age of Kali has weaknessesand low nature- very sinful nature- and thisnature we sought of say goodbye to thisnature when we take up devotional service.We say goodbye and we let this nature just


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sort of die off, we let it dry up. And maybeit still stands there like a dried and shriveledup plant in the desert. We have not given itany water for a long time and weredefinitely not going to either, but is it dead

or is there still some life in it?

Were not going to test it- were not going totest it in this age of Kali because will weever become completely spotless? Will weever become completely spotlessly pure,without any tinge of falsity in our nature?Will it happen? I dont know, I dont know.All I can, is that I dont meditate on that somuch; I dont bring out a microscope or amagnifying glass to see if I can find a traceof something.

All I can say is, were not going to feed it!Were not going to water it!

Were not going to invest anything in thesethings!Thats my commitment, that is my sacrifice

because my sacrifice is sankirtana -glorification of the Supreme Lord

congregationally, spreading the mercy of theglorification of the Supreme Lord.

The result is certainly the mercy of theSupreme Lord- undoubtedly. And then whocares about qualities when he has the mercyof the Lord.

So I think this point that the nature of KaliYuga may reflect in us, is something we canall recognize. Everyone of us can see thatwe are affected by Kali, we can see it. But

we make our commitment not to act uponthis aspect of our nature; we just simply


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make our commitment to act for the serviceof Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhus mission, theHoly Name, and everything will come-

We will more and more attract the mercy of

the Lord because at the end of life, whatcounts is not necessarily our qualities butreally counts is whether we have pleased theSupreme Lord. When Lord Caitanya is

pleased, thats enough. And thats what wesee because we see that so many vaisnavasget the mercy, we see that through thismovement so many got the mercy and theydidnt have all the qualities, we know that.We know the history of some who have left,who have already left. We know the historyof some who did service and then for years ,for years they were in Maya- but first theydid big service- then for years they were inMaya and then somehow or other they

became ill, they came to Vrndavana and theywere allowed to leave in Vrndavana! Weknow so many like that; we know storieswhere Prabhupada appeared at the end. Thestory of Sudama: Sudama- he left Krsnaconsciousness, he was a sanyassi, he gave itall up, he left the regulative principles butthen Prabhupada had asked for Sudama andPrabhupada had said that he would save

Sudama, he said, For all the service he hasdone I will save Sudama. And then it is saidthat at the end of his life, Prabhupadasuddenly appeared out of nowhere!

Although Sudama had up to that point not been following spiritual standards but just inthe last week or so had been surrounded bydevotees who had been chanting and so on.For so long he had not been following, stillhe got the mercy.So if we please Lord Caitanya, if we pleasethe spiritual master, if we somehow or other

please Krsna, then everything will work andthat is the system, that is the system.

Therefore the system is to take shelter, takeshelter of sankirtana. Yes we try; we try todevelop good qualities. I meet so manydevotees, naturally, and so many times

people speak about not having goodqualities. Its a big topic in what devotees are

presenting as an impediment to their spiritual advancement. They always say, Idont have all these qualities and so onand thats my major stumbling block.Generally my mood is: Dont worry about it,

dont worry about it. Get into service; dolots of service and that is the way to attract


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the mercy and the quality will come. It willcome in the course of service, it will justcome with time. And then if something islacking, the Lord will overlook it and do therest.

Anyway, back to the topic of identity. So wehave so many roles and so many identities.

And now in my current identity, it is myservice to be a via media; I somehow or other be transparent to Krsnas teachings,His will, His desire, the desire of theAcaryas and so on.

So that is my service and Im trying to dothat with whatever power is in my

possession. And then Im praying that Krsnawill do the rest and that the blessings of myspiritual master will do the rest. Thats how

it works. Still, in search of identity in thesense, theres also the spiritual body in the

spiritual world and the eternal relationshipwith Krsna- I have no idea what my eternalidentity is, I dont know. So still, I think thatIm a bona fide representative of the

parampara, still I have faith that I can deliver

people or that I can deliver the goods.

Not on my strength, but rather on gurukrsna-rupa hana sastrera pramane guru-rupe

krsna krpa karena bhakta-gan. So thespiritual master is as good as Krsna- therepresentative of Krsna- and Krsna, throughthe spiritual master, is delivering thedisciple. Therefore its not the spiritualmaster whos delivering the disciple, itsKrsna, its Krsna!
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So therefore I think its possible to be therepresentative since it was done with the

blessing of my spiritual master, who wantedme to be like this and since I desire to giveup a personal agenda and to simply be an

instrument and try in that way. I think thenKrsna will do the rest, ultimately Krsna willdeliver us from birth and death. Thats howit is.(Baby screams in audience) Therefore itsnot a sacrifice at all to be a sanyassi! ItslikeI like to tell the story of the

bramhacari in Radhadesh who saw this littleskinny mataji go up the staircase with a hugesuitcase. And he said to me, he said, Oh, Icannot let that poor mataji carry this bigsuitcase. I told him, Prabhu, dont worryabout it you know, shell somehow or other manage it. He said, No, I cannot let such askinny girl carry such a big suitcase. Andhe went up.

And two years later, I saw him in a flat andthere were two babies and they were crying,oh boy! It was intense!

And he was looking at me like, ohhh Isaid, I told you not to carry that suitcase!What to do, what to do!So yes, it is very nice. My life is gettingnicer everyday, its getting nicer all the time.

For twenty years I was in the grhastha

asrama and four years in the vanaprasthaasrama. The relationship with my former wife started in a karmi relationship and thenwe became devotees. And I must say thatthe devotee part was better than the karmi

part. So there was a progression-improvement- it was getting better becausein the karmi part there was the free moraleand everything was possible. There were nolimitations because it was the sixties and theseventies and FREEDOM- thats what itwas all about but I didnt always like it, Imust say. It was painful sometimes. So Iliked the grhastha asrama which was basedon vows, based on principles, based oncommitments, based on loyalty, based ontrying to act according to some sense of duty; I liked it that there was some duty

because it made things very clearl, it sort of took it off the platform where you can expectanything. In the material relationship, thatwas there prior to Krsna consciousness,anything could happen- anytime- because wewere free. So that caused so much anxiety


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actually, but that grhastha asrama was better.But then it also had its limitations, because Irealized that Im putting so much energy, somuch energy in this relationship with thisone person, I put so much energy in this one

relationship, and then when I took sanyassa-shoo! I was just amazed that like with howmany people one can maintain arelationship!

Its amazing! Instead of with my one wife,Im having relationships with so many

people! Its quite amazing. And theyre allmeaningful, they are all favorable for Krsnaconsciousness and we are advancing throughthat. And therefore Im seeing that life hasimproved tremendously- tremendously , with

big jumps. Its much more satisfying to beable to work on a much broader scale.

Well we are here today, at the eve of afestival and I have just sort of (for convenience sake) stuck a Vyasa-Pujacelebration before the Nrsimha festival sothat- if we want to- that we can combine it.And Ive been thinking about festivals andabout this festival and Ive also beenthinking, Well, what am I going to say?

What is my message going to be? Ive been thinking about it. Although I am known

to be one to give lectures without thinkingabout it before ;I do the thinking during thelecture and often its some sort of meditation- some people say Im justrambling- but its a mediation. But this

case, I was thinking about it because Ithought I want some sort of message, I wantsome sort of deeper purpose, some sort of meaning in the whole thing. Whats the

point if it is just some sort of ritual? And if Igo through some whole ordeal of a bigritualistic performance, I dont know if I cantolerate that. I would like it to be somethingmeaningful.

Now lately, I have been spending my timedoing some research on the history of Gaudiya Vaisnavism, that means thevaisnavas that were there at the time of SriCaitanya Mahaprabhu and who came after Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and the history of our movement basically.

So I have been looking at one particular episode, which is described in the Bhakti-Ratnarka, which is a book which deals withVaisnava history. And there in the Bhakti-Ratnarka, that episode, it describes threegreat vaisnavas who came up after the mainGoswamis- the main six Goswamis had sort

of the left the planet- then Srinivasa Acarya, Narottama das Thakura and Syamananda


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became the main the leaders amongst thevaisnavas and they became the greatinspiration.

And they were going with all themanuscripts of the original writings of theGoswamis to Bengal and some of us may be

familiar that these manuscripts were stolen by some king who had an astrologer workingfor him. And this astrologer would tell him,anytime that some people would pass by theroad with wealth, then the astrologer wouldtell him exactly what it was and the kingwould just send his soldiers to go and collectit. So they did a good collection, it wasgood team work. And he was a goodastrologer. So this astrologer had said thatthese soon some group of men will comeand they will be carrying the greatesttreasure and they will be hardlyaccompanied by any guards or anything, sowe can easily get it.

Okay, so that king stoled the original booksof the Goswamis- in a whole series of boxeshe had it- fine. Then it is said that king,when he opened up the boxes and he found

books inside instead of gold and jewels, he

was shocked! And its said, but when hestarted, out of curiosity, he just started to

read some of the palm leaves and as hestarted reading, he couldnt stop andeventually he became so much impressed,that he became a devotee. He became adevotee and he started to realise, Ive

committed a great offence.So therefore he arranged for Srinivasa to be

brought and then eventually he surrenderedto Srinivasa, became his disciple andWell,it is described then (no longer in the Bhakti-Ratnarka- but in other scriptures and other notes and books)- that at the time Srinivasa,he convinced the king to make many, manymanuscripts of the books of the Goswamis.And hundreds of brahmanas were engagedin hand-copying all his original manuscripts.And Narottama, he went with the samemission to his place of origin where he wasfrom- an aristocratic family- so he alsomanaged to get many manuscripts copied.And Syamananda went to the royal family inOrissa and asked the King also to arrange tocopy many, many manuscripts. So this was astrategy because in those days a book distributor had to kind of to arrange for hisown books. You couldnt just say, Well,where are the books? My books are not here!Then we dont go out


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No, in those days you just get someone tohand copy a book. Well, so then how todistribute all these books? Well, they decidedthat they werent going to bother going from

person to person and door to door because

that was going to take too long. So thereforethey organised some very big festivals and inthese big festivals they distributed the books.So there was a whole series of festivalsdedicated to several vaisnavas.

And then there was the Kaitri festival, whichwas the first Gaura Purnima festival and itwas a super transcendental event! In thatevent in the Kaitri festival, first of all, all thevaisnavas came together. Vaisnavas camefrom everywhere . Many, many great

devotees came: Jahnava mata, the wife of Lord Nityananda came; also Acyutananda,the son of Advaita Acarya, he came. So youcan see the kind of personalities that werethere, that were still alive, they came andthey blessed the whole assembly. And thenit is described that Srinivasa had arrangedfor all these Deities to be installed. So thatwas also a big thing, that all these templeswere started there and it was a major happening. Just like we have this temple

and we return here every year and it is amajor thing in the year- Nrsimha Caturdasi-

weve been here. I dont know how many Nrsimha Caturdasis weve been here! Butquite a few now. Ive lost count in fact!And some people have been here almosteternal in this Nrsimha Caturdasis! So

whatever may be, we have been here and itssignificant to us to be here with Lord

Nrsimhadeva. So these festivals aresignificant.

Then Narottama began to lead the kirtana.

And its said when Narottama began to leadthe kirtana, it became such a wonderfulkirtana that at one point they all saw LordCaitanya, they all saw Lord Nityananda andthey saw entire Panca-Tattva dancing in that

kirtana.So everyone saw, so everyone wasoverwhelmed and ecstatic. Then whathappened was, suddenly they alldisappeared! So then everyone was heart-

broken and people fell to the ground butsuch ecstasy, such attachment, its said theground became muddy of the tears. That ishow it is described. It must be quite intensecrying party there! And then it is said thateveryone who came to that Kaitari festival

was presented with these books. And in thisway everyone was getting a taste of nectar


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and everyone was getting so many divineinstructions. One should understand that upto that point, there-were-no-books! Yes,Bhagavad-Gita was there, yes, Bhagavatamwas there and the original texts but no

Goswami literature- nothing, nothing there! Nothing.So it was quite serious, but then from thatday on everyone had Bhaktirasamrtasindhu,everyone had Caitanya Caritamrta.

All these books now were widely availableand in this way everyone thoroughlyabsorbed the conclusions of Gaudiya

Vaisnavism.So that was very important because so muchmisconceptions had come about after SriCaitanya Mahaprabhu had left. All theseapa-sampradayas came up, all theseimitations and people had just learnedsomething from Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhusteachings but nothing was recorded of Histeachings. So everyone just did his ownthing and added something of his own- itwas a huge mess, huge mess. But this Kaitri

festival, it was particularly for two purposes:1) It was meant to taste nectar and to in this

way get great inspiration. And the other aspect of this festival was that it was fine-tuning the Siddhanta.So I was thinking also that maybe we haveto use this festival for that purpose; we have

to use it for the purpose of somehow or other finding inspiration and becoming absorbedin hearing and chanting- a lot of hearing andchanting- and I guess I would like to hear alot of chanting because as you can hear Imstill recovering from the South AfricanRatha Yatra, which really did it to me!

Well, it was alsoI had already had a little birthday party in South Africa and there,straight after the Ratha Yatra when my voicewas still gone, I think litres of cream andlitres of everything was put on top in 105

preparations! And then just when I got over that then I had an ice-cream party inEngland- another surprise birthday party!So ice-cream and cake with one candle! Somy voice is weak- and so is the microphone!

So let us somehow or other becomeabsorbed in hearing and chanting and in thisway find inspiration, realising that LordCaitanya is also present. In the CaitanyaCaritamrta, chapter 7, Adi-lila, there is a

purport (I think its 50 or 51) where it is


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described that whenever devotees aregathering and whenever there is the chantingof the Holy Name and whenever there isKrsna prasada, there surely Lord Caitanyawill be personally present. So there is no

doubt that Lord Caitanya will be personally present in our festival, just as much as in Narottamas festival in Kaitari. So He will be here in our festival for sure. So we should just make sure to see Him.

We should not close our eyes or be blind because its said, dekhiniya dekhasuryaan . That means that even while looking, thenon-devotees can never see Krsna just as theowls cannot see the light of the sun or therays of the sun, cannot see.So if we try to see Krsna in the kirtanas, inthe Deity form, in the worship, in the wholeglorification,; if we try to understand howKrsna is receiving these offerings and howKrsna is reciprocating with these offerings,then we can perceive the presence of Krsnasurely. And then we carry that presence of Krsna with us in our heart. So that is onething that I would like to happen and theother thing is some Siddhanta. I would like

to kind of make some statements regardingSiddhanta and maybe especially on the topic

of Guru Tattva today and tomorrow. Sotoday I already made some statements on thenature of Guru Tattva and I would like to saysome more, I dont know yet what will comeout- I have no idea- but Im sure that in the

reciprocation something will happen becausethese Vyasa-Pujas are certainly beyondritual; theyre not ritual, they are anexchange and there is a reciprocation. Whenwe are genuinely trying to make very sincereofferings, then (Prabhupada was also likethat) the intellectual platform becomes morespontaneous and so many things willhappen. And therefore we are waiting to seewhat will be revealed.

But with this lecture I sort of tried to well,you call it Setting the scene just as theBhagavad-Gita is called like that in the

beginning- Setting the scene. So with thatI think the scene is set. Now its time for Arjuna and Krsna to blow their conch shells,very loud and the drama can unfold and

begin! So I end with this for today, waitingfor more to come tomorrow.
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kks lecture - bhagavad gita 4.31

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