kks - radhadesh festival

8/14/2019 KKS - Radhadesh Festival

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KKS Lecture SUMMER FESTIVAL, RADHADESH07/2007

So we have come together again on this

Sunday afternoon. Were comingclosely towards the end of a summer festival- which looked more like anautumn festival- but I guess thats howit is; in this part of the world, you never know! But it doesnt matter at all

because still our festival is nice becausewere not just depending on such thingsas the weather. Its just nice to meet somany people who are interested inspiritual things. Since the festival is

coming to an end in a way, I could saythat Ive met many interesting peopleyesterday. I had lots of nice talks and Ifound that lots of people are actuallyvery favourable towards spiritual lifeand see a need, see that there is a needfor a spiritual dimension to life. So Ifelt encouraged because I felt thattheres a place for us in this world, I feltthat theres something to do for us, weare appreciated and theres actuallymany, many people out there who areinterested in what we have to offer. I

found that really enlivening because,

yes, I myself, I became involved in thismovement, initially with hesitation. Itwasnt just that, when I saw the HareKrsnas that I thought, This is whatIve always wanted to do with my life!and that I jumped right in- nothing likethat at all!

But rather I read books, books aboutways of life, which went a little bitabout the borders of our homeland. Iwas interested in other cultures andother ways of thinking. And of course,I was there in the 60s and 70s. I was

just sort of growing up towardsindependence at that time. So in the


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70s, a lot of people were interested inIndia. Nowadays also, but especially atthat time, it was new, it was really anew thing. The Beatles came out withdifferent songs about it and were even-

the long, long winding road which wasa road going to Hrsikesh actually- theywent there and met the Maharsi yogiand there were many other things.

George Harrison did this concert for Bangladesh and I sure enough, boughtthe LPs and played the sitar musicforever, and it was the first time that Iever heard such a thing. And I stillremember that record quite well

because it started out with RaviShankar.

He was first of all, he asked people tonot smoke, then he started makingsome noises on the tamburas and allthese things, and stopped after about aminute and there was a huge applause.And he said, If you like the tuning so

much, Im sure youre gonna like theconcert even better! Thats how it

started. So, that was pretty funny! Ya,what can I say, that it sort of createdthat mystic image about India.

So I decided to go there. Now, in theculture of the 70s, if you were goingthere, you couldnt go by plane- thatwas not the proper way to go to theEast. You had to go over land. So I didit: got the magic bus from Amsterdamand boy, was it magic! Three weeks-over mountains, over valleys,sometimes no roads, through dry

riverbeds and what not! Eventually I,after many adventures, came to India. Itwas really something extraordinary,undoubtedly, because it was a countrythat had totally different values, totallydifferent approach to life and at thattime, practically no Western influence-very, very little. India was keeping its

borders closed to Western influence.Gandhi had something like 300%import tax on anything from the west sothere wasnt much to be found, you can

bet! Everything was just verytraditional, it was interesting. I camefrom Pakistan, in Pakistan they said,(Pakistan accent) oh, you are nothaving the correct stamp in the

passport. You will have big trouble. Wecan not let you out of the country.They said, When you come into our country, they should have given you anentry stamp at the border and withoutthe entry stamp you can not exit!


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I said, I came into the country, I didntget an entry stamp, but I surely entered

because Im here! So now you shouldlet me out But they wanted a bribeand everything- big fight.

So after Pakistan- shoo! - I walkedacross the border of India. There was a

long lane with potted palms at the sideof the road and I walked along this

beautiful lane into India, and there wasa man sitting behind the desk under atree. So I thought, thats pretty far out!He doesnt have an office- his office isunder a tree! Not only did he have anoffice under the tree, but to make itmore extraordinary; he had amoustache, which was about this big. Ithink at night he was putting on curl

pins to make it come out in the morningand so on! And this manwell, Iwanted a stamp in my passport thistime, because Id just gone to this trip.So I gave him my passport, I wanted astamp and he went like, No, no, no,no, no. He said, Not interested.

He said, I want to know why you havecome to India? So I said, Well, Ivecome to India because I heard that Indiais a very spiritual country and Iminterested to check it out. He said,

Ah, ah, ah, very nice! Very nice!He was very happy and then he toldme, Then you must go to Benares. SoI said, Yes, yes I will go there, surely.He said, No, no. You must go. I said,Yes, I will. He said, I will makesure, I will personally put you on thetrain tonight. He said, Meet me at therailway station.And he bought me a ticket and put meon the train. So it was quite something.

On that train, there were all kinds of people. We came from Punjab so therewere Sikhs with turbans around their heads- one sitting in luggage rack, hewas constantly chanting, Rama, Rama,Rama I was looking, after one hour-still going strong! Rama, Rama,Rama There were Muslims andthey were bowing down all the time. Itwas a long train ride- something like 32hours! So there was lots of bowing,lots of prayers and all along, our friendcontinued with, Rama, Rama,


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Rama the whole way! That wasquite impressive! Then there was ahusband and a wife, and this wife wasserving her husband in a way like Idnever seen in my life.

I was shocked! It was another world, Iwas in another culture and it wasintriguing! And somehow or other, onthat train, everyone seemed so religiousand one old man came to me and said,Son, everything is in Gods hands.And I thought, did I get on the wrongtrain? Is this one maybe going toheaven? It was like that.

So, never before in my life had I beenso confronted with religion. Im fromHolland, sort of Heimsteider, not so far from Amsterdam. And my family, for afew generations, was into business.That was really what was going:Money! Money was the honey!

So anyway, religion was something.My parents did marry in the church andit was the last time they ever went!

What can I say! And I went twice inmy life. So religion was not so

prominent. But when I came to India-shoo! it was everywhere, everywhere .But it sort of seemed to have a different

nature- not so dark- it seemed to be amore festive approach, not one of black clothes and dark buildings, but one of more outgoing, but very much part of life. And one thing that became veryclear in a country like India, was that

people had deep faith, somehow or other. The whole country of India wasresting on deep faith.

In Benares, of course, there were manyexperiences: that mighty river and also,in the city of Benares, one gets a bit of an experience with death because it is aholy place and according to the Vedicculture, those who leave their bodies,often times those bodies are brought tothe Ganges and are burned there. Andthen the ashes are put onto the river, asyou know. So there are these burninggatas. So one day, therewell at these

burning gatas also, one could seethings from so nearby, from so nearby.Years later a friend of mine, who was a

devotee- a devotee of Krsna- also wentthere and he came to the burning gata,


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I dont know mine. Is there anyonewho remembers it here? If there is,thats nice but are you even sure thatits not something you sub-consciously

picked up from the movies and mistake

it for a last life? So they say, itsdifficult- remembrances of last life, yes.But, yes, there was a logic to it, a logicthat those who have not completed their course of life in this world, who stillwant to continue to enjoy this world-come back! Enjoy it again. If you can,try again. Its not so easy, because lifeis not always what you want it to be.We wanted a summer festival, for example. Imagine how much meetingsthey had to have a summer festival!Everything they tried to do. Of coursethey have experience, so they made atent just in case. One year, this tent wasso badly flooded that they filled it upwith hay; there was so much water hereduring the summer festival that theythrew all kinds of hay everywhere andit was like we had a barn festival. Andat night we had a dance and I was justwaiting for the violins you know, hee haa!, because we were dancing inthe straw. So I didnt know what itwould be like this year. Weve alreadyhad other summer festivals before.

Anyway, so here we are, in this world.So according to the thoughts of theEast, life after life we return to thisworld. Slowly, slowly it began to makesense to me as I was there in India, as Isaw everything in India, gradually Ithought, theres a logic to it. That wassomething! Eternity- that made senseto me also; to think that this one life is

all there is, to think that we are onlychemicals?

How can I believe it! Last year, I waswith a group of people with a boat andsome other leaders, sailing around the

sea in Denmark- nice place. We rentedthis big boat- expensive thing, 10 000euros, 3 master- with a crew andeverything: 32 cabins inside and filledit up with people, who all paid for therent, and off we went to the Danishislands. It was very nice! So whenever we came into one of these little ports, acrowd of people would come to look atthe boat and then they saw on there theHare Krsnas- which made it even more

special- and then we treated the boatlike a stage and we did a performancefor them, which was appreciated bysome and not, by others. What to do!Thats life! But there were enough wholiked it to make it interesting.

Anyway, so afterwards I was walkingin the shore and there was a Dutchman.And he had already heard that I wasfrom Holland, so he walked up to meand said, Oh, you are from Holland?I said, Yes I am from Holland.He said, Oh very nice. You have a nice

boat! I said, Yes, yes. He said, I


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also have a nice boat. I said, Oh,really? He said, Yes, you want tocome and see? I said, Sure, sure!So he invited me to his sailing yacht,which was a 35m thing- an ocean racer

etc- and he had already been across theAtlantic a few times. He sat down onthe ship, took a bottle of wine, poured aglass and said, Have a drink. I said,Ill have some water please.All right, he gave me some water. I hadmy water, he had his wine and we had achat, and he said, You know, whenyoure out in the middle on the Atlantic,you cannot imagine the sunrise! Thesunrise: the colours reflecting on thewater and returning into the sky Hesaid, that, that was so beautiful! Itmoved me deeply! It touched me! Itwas something overwhelming. I cannotdescribe it. I have never seen anythinglike that!

He took a sip of his wine and then said,And what happened to you in your life, that you had to create some God tofeel comfortable?I go like, Ho, ho, ho, ho!!!.Wait aminute, wait a minute!!!! Just oneminute ago, you, you had a semi-religious experience! You were almoston your knees in awe and reverence for the sunrise! If its all just chemicals, if youre just chemicals and thats all- justcombinations of gases and explosionsthere in that sun- why are you so moved

by it? Why do you feel so touched bythe rising of the sun? Why do you wantto write poetry about it, and tell meabout it with almost tears in your eyes?Why? If we are all from a bio-chemicalorigin, please explain to me, where

does this come from- this sense of ecstatics, this sense of being touched bynature? Its so beautiful Snow? Its

just ice and water!

H20, H20 in a temperature below 0.

Whats so extraordinary about that?Why?But somewhere we see, that somehowor other there is another element in us,an element that wants to appreciate the

beauty of nature, that appreciates thegood and bad. Why is there good and

bad if everything is just coming about by chance? Is there good and bad then?Very relative. If everything came aboutsimply by chance, by a bio-chemical

origin, then good and bad- what does itmean? Whats good is whats good for me! Well okay, lets say whats good, iswhats good for both of us! But its noteasy because how can you do good for all? Its impossible.

Thats very difficult. How can you dogood for all? So indeed, difficult.Whats good for me is causing damageto another.The factory owner is getting fat andrich he is having a great time.


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The factory workers? I dont know if they are as happy as the owner. Theylive under the smoke; he lives in a nice

place in the hills. So like that,happiness for all? Is it possible? Thesequestions come to mind, thesequestions come to mind. So yes, if lifeis just coming from a material source,then whats good and bad? Andtherefore, we see so many ideas in theworld, so many kinds of people andtherefore we see a world wheregraduallywhere nobody cares.

I saw once a poster, it was a poster of aHappy Home and thats what it wascalled: Home sweet Home and therewas a nice house, with a nice gardenand a family there with pets andeverything and it was very nice- on

planet Earth. The only thing was, that planet Earth, there was not much left of it! Most had fallen off; there was onlya little piece, like a piece of cheese cutout. So that was what was left. It wasno longer more a round ball, but justone point of the ball with a little houseon it- Home sweet home.Yes, thats what we get in a spirit of selfishness. In a spirit of selfishness,then as long as Ive got a nice garden,as long as I live okay, what do I care!

Dump the nuclear waste and all theheavy chemicals in the oceans of

Africa. Its forbidden in the North Seaso we dump it in front of the coast of Africa! Neo-colonialism, stillexploiting them! Nice!

So like that, what to do! Thereforewhen we really want to go forward, wehave to grow up and we really needhappiness for all, happiness for all- thatis the world we should see. Nothappiness for Europe and poverty for another part of the world- no, happinessfor all! Not a first world and a thirdworld- no, everything one world, oneworld. Why borders? Why did weinvent borders? Visa! (Bark!)

You dont have visa? Get out from mycountry; youre from the wrong part of the world! (Bark!) Out!

Yes, like dogs barking at the borders!Keeping the gardens for ourselves, yes

but why? We are one world, one

people. Borders? Why do we have borders?


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Dad, why do we have borders?Dont ask such questions son!But why?Well, its just like dad, you know,

people speak different languages.

Why do they speak differentlanguages?This boy asks too many questions!Stop! Just accept it all right! And just

be like everybody else.Yes, dad.

So like that one becomes deaddad, Imean! So what to do! So, why

borders? No, one world, one people.Different- okay different colours. No

problem. Even here, everyone looksdifferent; different colours of hair and

so on. Its not that we say: all the blonde ones in that corner, okay, allthe blondes over to the corner in the

back! All the brunettes, over there! no,we are mixed.So why not mix with all the varieties of the world? Why borders? No more

borders. So we propose one worldwhere people come together. But this isonly possible, only possible if we havea spiritual goal- if we accept somespiritual knowledge.So gradually I was getting deeper intoIndia, and as I was getting deeper intoIndia, I was getting more and moreknowledge about the Vedic tradition of India. So gradually I read Bhagavad-Gita, which is a summary of all thoseVedic conclusions. As I readBhagavad-Gita, there was one principlein there, which I liked. It was acomparison to a field. It said, there wasa farmer, he was working in the fieldand as this farmer was working in his

field, he was growing the grains. Andyes, when the harvest came, he took some grains home, but ultimately, theman working in the field, was not theowner of the field. The owner of the

field, he was wealthy, he lived in a bighouse, he did not actually work on theland; he engaged others in working onthe land. So the worker, the worker could certainly work on the field andtake something , but not everything .Most of the produce of that land wentto the owner. Its the way the worldworks!

This metaphor was given in theBhagavad-Gita and it explained thatyes, the body is the field and within that

body there are two knowers of thatfield: one is the worker, the cultivator and the other is the owner of the field.We are the cultivator and not the owner of the field.

Well, I thought about that because I hadalways thought sort of, well everyone istrying to be a proprietor, My house, mygarden, my fence, yes, my gate- mine, I

and Mine ! but no, here its said thatactually, we are not actually the owner in this world. So we are caretakers, notowner in this world. Mankind doesntown this world. God, thats a shock!We always thought that we were incharge on this planet. Wasnt it?Animals- we put them something intheir mouth and some ropes and we pullthemyes, we are in charge here, youanimal! Even elephants, we controlthem. No problem! Man is the ruler of

planet Earth.. we always thought we


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were, and now, what did I read? It wasquite an adjustment. Suddenly I was nolonger a proprietor; suddenly I was onlya caretaker.

I never thought of that, I never thoughtof that- as a caretaker. But if Im thecaretaker, then whos the proprietor?Its Bush! Come, didnt you know

No, no of course not. Hes justhesone of the best comics that the worldever had! So, no, beyond him, there isKrsna- the Supreme Lord! We call HimKrsna, others call Him other names.

I go to Africa, South Africa where they

call Him, unkhulukhulu . Its cool, er?He has a cool name, unkhulukhulu !

And do you know what unkhulukhulu means? Ill tell you what it means; itmeans He who has most cows. Prettygood! They got it, they got it right!They did good. They actually realise

that God has the most cows!

Okay, so we tell them, Yes, youreright. And did you know that Hes amusician as well? And they say,Really? Is unkhulukhulu a musician?Thats pretty cool man! (Africanaccent) so like that, I thought it wasremarkable that somehow or other inAfrica, they knew that the SupremeLord had the most cows!And that it sort of convinced me thatthere was some ancient, deep

knowledge there, which may be nowcovered over, but that once, peopleactually knew about Krsna and that is afact! So there is one Supreme Lordwho is the Lord of the world. We mayhave different cultures, but if we beginto approach Him- and everyone can dothat from his own tradition and his own

background- if we begin to approachHim, then He will reveal Himself to us,and everything becomes clear, with

time.


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One timeyou may know that the HareKrsna movements official name isISKCON. ISKCON stands for International Society for KrsnaConsciousness.

We are registered like that around theworld; International Society for Krsna

Consciousness. So one day, a mancame to our founder, Srila Prabhupada,and he had a proposal, he said, I wouldlike to invite you to become the founder guru, acarya, teacher of theInternational Society for Christ Consciousness Would you be willingto accept?

So Prabhupada said, All right, yes, Imwilling to accept. But I have acondition and my conditions are these,two things: one is that, you follow the

10 commandments, Thou shalt not killthat means not even animals thou shalt

not kill, and that you chant the name of the Lord. And if you follow the 10commandments and chant the name of the Lord, I will accept., Prabhupadasaid. Anyway, they didnt do it. But

yes, he was ready to accept like that because Srila Prabhupada, he knewvery well that once people becamedevotes of God and dedicate their livesto Him as the proprietor and understandthat they are caretaker on His behalf,then God will make everything clear,Krsna will reveal Himself to the world,the world will know Him as He is, theLord will gradually show His identity.

And the more the world becomesatheistic and materialistic, the moreKrsna hides Himself, the less He will

be visible, the less he will be known,the less we will hear that little voicefrom within- if you dont listen to it,you wont hear it anymore! Untileveryone says, God? I dont knowIts a nice thing, but you know the

problem is theres absolutely no proof until you come to a pointwhere people say, Well, you know,thats a very personal thing, thats avery personal thing and if you want to

believe, thats up to you. But please, please one thing- dont talk about it
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then you have come in Holland, wherethat kind of philosophy is notuncommon!But there is a spiritual vacuum in theworld and if we look at all the cultures

of the world, then we see that anatheistic, materialistic culture has never existed very long in the world. Maybesince the 2 nd world war or so have wegot this culture and already so many

people are looking for alternatives- somany! We get so many visitors here-too many! Sometimes when Im herein Radhadesh, Im only a visitor, butsometimes when Im here, I feel like amonkey in a cage because you have allthese bus tours, they come here and the

people, they look at you likeas if inthe zoo, you know! And they look atyou from head to toe like, Wow, thatsa real one, you know someone pullsout a camera- click! Its like a monkeyin the zoo!

So, so many people actually, are takinginterest in spiritual life because itsnatural- somehow or other its natural.And thats why we see, why are thereso many religions in the world?Because all the people of the world,somehow or other, have that sameinclination in their heart- there is aspiritual need.And therefore, Im glad you came andthat you shared this weekend with us.Please do come back next year. Welltry and improve on the weather conditions first of all, and if there areany other areas that you would like usto improve, certainly we will try inthose too. And some of you, we have

seen before, some of you have comeagain, some are coming more often,some have only come for this festival,and some come every year for just thisfestival!

All I can say is that, thats wonderful!Were happy to see you, old friends, back here again. We hope youll come back again and again because yes, this place is also for you; it is a place full of culture, full of a deep culture comingfrom India originally and full of deepknowledge.

We have a big library there, on theother side of the park. There is acollege here, where people are studyingand they get degrees- its connected tosome university- I dont know exactly

because Im totally useless at thesethings, but whatever theyre getting, its


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a formally recognised degree. So thereis a theological college, there are many,many things going on in this place:there are regular courses, regular activitiesin other words, its an

interesting place. Its not all just abouta summer festival with some balloonsand so on- No, theres more to it. Itsnot all about hot air- theres more to itthan just that, there is some substance.

So you are most welcome to talk to us personally, privately, and to look intothings more because I think by now,(this is it, Ive got 30 seconds, I timed itreal well) by now, Hare Krsna is sort of accepted. You know, when I use to livein the 70s in the temple, and I was in

Amsterdam, people wouldespeciallythe Amsterdam construction workerswould go, Hey, *young Jourig! Hey,Young Jourig! I cant translate thatvery well! But if you missed out on it,its a typical Amsterdam way of saying,a guy in a dress. I mean, the things Iwent through over the years, youknowIve had a man come up to meand said, Hi, I love the colour of your dress!

I mean, I have a staff also, so you canthave a staff, so you cant imagine what

its like walking around in Holland witha staff on the 5 th of December! Or Icame to Australia and they say, Hey,fishing, fishing! Did you catchsomething?

So, sometimes I just say, yes! And theygo, Oh, ye, I love fishing, I caught this

big! Oh my God!

But over the years, I must say, we got alittle more acceptance and by now, a lotof people begin to appreciate thatmaybe were not just some strange guys

but that possibly, we have something tooffer, because they realise its not justsome idiots who put on the bedsheets, or not just some extra-terrestrials who have just landed fromanother planet,

or not some sought of absolute strangecult of religious fanatics, Hare KrsnaHare Krsna- constantly repeat this
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mantra; but that actually they are people who have a way of life, whoseem to have many good sides to itactually: we dont drink and we dontneed it. I dont drink and I dont go

nuts, I dont smoke and I feel okay, Idont need any drugs and Im quitehappy, Im even not addicted to sex thisway or that way, and it makes life

pretty cheap and simple. And Im stillokay. Im not ready for any mentalhospital or anything like that, Imtotally peaceful. In other words, theremust be something, some secret to lifethat can be found. What it is? I willnot tell you in this lecture! Rather,whatever that secret is, you can digunder the surface and see what youfind, because my lecture ends here-with a secret!!!

Thank you very much!


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kks - radhadesh festival

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