sa veda dhatuh padavim parasya
duranta-viryasya rathanga-paneh
yo ‘mayaya santatayanuvrittya
bhajeta tat-pada-saroja-gandham
Translation : Only those who render unreserved, uninterrupted, favorable service unto the Lotus feet of Krsna who carries the wheel of the chariot in his hand can know the creator of the universe in His full glory, power and transcendence.
Purport by His divine grace A C Bhaktivedanta Swami:
Only the pure devotees can know the transcendental name, form and activities of Lord Krsna due to their being completely free from the reactions of fruitive work and mental speculation, the pure devotees have nothing to derive as personal profit from their unalloyed service to the Lord they render incessant service to the Lord spontaneously without any reservation, everyone within the creation of the Lord is rendering service to the Lord indirectly or directly no one is exception to this law of the Lord.
Lecture begins :
mukam karoti vacalam
pangum langhayate girim
yat-krpa tam aham vande
sri-gurum dina-taranam
It is explained Srimad Bhagavatam, by Srila Suta Gosvami, that description of the various incarnations of the Lord as He appears in various places, various times to various personalities. Krsna explains in Gita: Yada yada hi dharmasya, glanir bhavati bharata abhyukatanama dharmasya tadatman srujamyaham. The Lord appears in this world, millennium after millennium, for the purpose of reclaiming the souls who have left His divine loving service to try to make some comfortable happy arrangement in the world of birth and death. Krsna explains in Bhagavad Gita – that there is no reason for Him to come to this material world which is anything like the reason we take birth, karmana daiva netrena that according to our previous karma we are forced by the law of nature to enter into a particular womb within the 8,400,000 species of life within creation, we take birth as a product of our own previous karma and after we take birth we have to accept a variety of pleasures and pains, happiness and sorrows according to our previous karma and according to the karma that we are creating today, we will have to enjoy or suffer those material reactions tomorrow. So yes man is the maker of his own destiny and every aspect of our life is a reaction to what we have done. We are responsible. And this situation of material entanglements is so difficult to overcome that only by the help of God himself is it possible. So Krsna comes to this world again and again to teach us through His words, through his various meanings of his pastimes, which are explained by his devotees how we can attain the perfection of life. First of all what is the perfection of life? Until we are convinced that this material existence is not our true home, it is not a place with any hope for real happiness, we will not strive for higher realizations, therefore Krsna speaks in Bhagavad Gita in such a way to convince us that the only sensible, intelligent way of life is a way of devotion, devotion to Him.
Janma karma ca me divyam
evaḿ yo vetti tattvataḥ
tyaktvā dehaḿ punar janma
naiti mām eti so ‘rjuna
By simply understanding in truth the divine nature of Krsna’s appearance in this world and His activities we are free from the clutches of birth and death; we transcend all suffering. No matter how many wonderful arrangements we make we cannot change the nature of the world. It is a place where there is danger at every step, everything could be going just perfectly and wonderfully according to all our desires and expectations and the next moment, there could be heart attack or one of our loved ones could have a severe crisis. In that situation no matter what we have done throughout our whole life, we cannot find even a grain of happiness. This is the world we live in and so many people are trying to avoid these problems, but they cannot; it is like swimming in the ocean and trying to avoid getting wet. Is it possible? If you are in the ocean, you are wet, here in material existence you are subjected to all sorts of sufferings.If you want to become dry, you cannot do it in the ocean. You have to get out of the ocean,if you want to be happy, really truly happy and avoid the struggles of pain. You have to transcend the material existence, you have to become detached which means to get out. But if you are drowning in the centre of ocean, what hope do you have of getting out? It’s too deep , it’s too wide and too long. Only if someone throws you a life raft and pulls you upon the ship can you get out? Similarly material existence is like an ocean .Only by the mercy of the Lord, He comes to this world, enters into ocean of material existence, but not like us.He is transcendental to the modes of material nature, He has no karma to receive.He has no desires to fulfill in this world, save and accept to throw us the life raft of His mercy and to help to come out. But we find that in this age of Kali Yuga practically 99 percent of human population simply will not accept the life raft. Why? Because their hands and their legs, every limb of their body ,their mind their intelligence is too busy trying to get dry in the ocean.We are so busy trying to find relief from the suffering of material existence, we do not have time to take the way out. Krsna appeared in this world directly, in his original personal transcendental form hardly five thousand years ago,through his wonderful pastimes which are revealed in the Srimad Bhagavatam and the Puranas, through His teachings of Bhagavad Gita, through His holy names:
Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.
Especially through His empowered servants, His devotees, He is offering that life raft to all of us, “Come out of material existence” . When Krsna appeared in this world, it was very instructive and the great acaryas explained how we can understand the Lord’s appearance. We will be describing it more in detail tomorrow, tomorrow is Janmashtami but we should prepare ourselves for this Janmashtami.
Meaning for Janmashtami:
Janmashtami means the day that Krsna is born, the day that He appears. God is never born. He is beginning-less and endless but just as the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening the Lord appears to our vision at a certain time and it is called his birth and then He disappears for our vision which is called His disappearance. Actually Krsna is actually somewhere shining the light of His causeless mercy through His divine personal presence. But you know that Devaki and Vasudev, they were married by the arrangement of Garga Muni and after the wedding ceremony Kamsa was bringing his sister to Vasudev’s kingdom and the demigods, they were very much anxious that Krsna come soon. So they spoke in the sky and they said: “You are a fool, the eighth son of your sister Devaki, will kill you”. So Kamsa who was a great demon who had conquered the whole universe.He was so afraid for his life because after all what’s the use of conquering the whole universe if you cannot live to enjoy it. So this was potentially the frustration of all of his plans. He was willing and ready to kill his own sister. He took her by the hair and drew his sword and was about to severe her head. Just see, how people too much materially attached, what sort of abominable atrocities, they are willing to do to protect their own sense gratification. And actually none of us really know how demoniac we might be until we are put in that situation. Vasudev convinced Kamsa that: “You have nothing to fear from your sister Devaki, it is her sons, I promise you, I will bring you each and every one of those sons and you can do as you like with them”. The first son that was born was Kirtiman, then Kamsa was thinking when he was brought the son that: “I have nothing to worry for this first son, it is the eighth. So you take this son back”. Then Kamsa came back into his association of his ministers and his friends who are all terribly materialistic and demoniac. Somehow or other they convinced him that “any of these sons can be the cause of great trouble” . Narada Muni also in order to speed the appearance of Krsna, he also added some words of encouragement to Kamsa. So Kamsa called Vasudev and Devaki back, he killed the first son ruthlessly and then put them in prison. And the next year there was a second son and Kamsa killed and a third son, he killed six of the children of Devaki. Now there are many ways of perceiving what we are meant to learn through the killing of these six children. But we have to search deeply into the Bhagavatam and the commentaries of the great souls to understand what this all means.
Story of six sons of Devaki before:
And today I would like to speak briefly about the story of the six sons that were killed by Kamsa after taking birth from the womb of Devaki. Long ago, there is a great sage called Marichi. Marichi, it is described that he represents the mind. Marichi had six sons, he himself was the son of Lord Brahma .At a certain particular time ,by the Yogamaya potency of Lord Vishnu ,Brahma became attracted to his own daughter whose name of Vak and he actually approached her and she ran away. We should know that Brahma is transcendental but the Supreme Lord wanted to show all living beings how careful we have to be because the power of Maya is so strong. That even if such a great soul can fall into illusion by the appearance of Maya, what is our position? Therefore we must be very strict, we must be very cautious and we must take shelter of good association at all times of our life, we cannot be careless, we cannot think that everything is alright, because in this world nothing is ever alright. Maya is imminently there ready to steal your intelligence way.
So Lord Brahma who is actually a great soul, who is willing to accept whatever position Krsna wanted to put him into to teach good lesson to society. So actually he was not at fault but the six sons of Marichi, they laughed at him. when they saw him behaving like this way and because they laughed at him, this was Vaishnav Aparadh – committed an offense to Lord Brahma and as a reaction they had to fall from their saintly position in the abode of the demigods and they had to take birth as demons, they became the sons of Hiranyakashipu and after that they became the sons of the son of Hiranyakashipu. Of the Grandsons,there is a demon of the name of Kalanemi and this Kalanemi was such a enemy of the Supreme Lord that after the churning of ocean of milk when there was a great war between the demigods and the demons, Kalanemi was riding on a lion and he had a trident in his hands and with all his power as he saw the Supreme Lord Narayan coming down on his bird carrier Garuda, he threw this trident to try to slaughter the Lord. Lord Vishnu, who was unconquerable, Ajitha, He easily defeated Kalanemi and killed him. Meanwhile the spiritual master of the demons, he took the dead body of Kalanemi and he gave him a special mystical herb called sanjivani and he brought Kalanemi back to life.Kalanemi was very much hateful toward Vishnu and he vowed that he would fight Him again and get revenge. So Kalanemi began to perform great Tapasya, intense Tapasya, in order to satisfy Lord Brahma.Lord Brahma appeared and he said: “I want the vow that no demigod, no living being of this creation can kill me and that I will have great strength to conquer all directions”. So he was given this benediction. And then Kalanemi took his next birth in the womb of the wife of Maharaj Ugrasena of Mathura and his name was Kamsa. He became such a powerful demon ,He conquered all the demons throughout the whole universe, he would challenge them and said: “If you defeat me, I will be your servant and if I defeat you, you have to be my servant till death”. So every asura throughout the universe became his humble servant, willing to give their lives for him. But in his previous birth, Kalanemi had six sons, the six sons of Marichi, became the sons of Hiranyakashipu, became the grandsons of Hiranyakashipu as the sons of Kalanemi . They were somewhat rebellious, they went on their own to perform Tapasya without the permission of Hiranyakashipu . You know someone who gets control, the more you get, the more you want, the more you get power and control in this world, the more you feel everything must be controlled by me. We become meticulous, that is human nature, the nature of ego, ahankar. When you have some control over something or someone it is intolerable to loose it, in fact you take offence ,it is like a disgrace. So Hiranyakashipu had conquered the whole universe, you know how disgrace and offended he was when he could not control Prahallad his son. Anyways he was so angry with his grandsons that “you dare to perform yagna to a demigod, you worship anyone else except me what would you call it”. Asura Aparadh. He became so angry with that, he cursed them that “I curse you that in your next birth, you will be killed by your own father”. So Kalanemi became Kamsa and six sons, grandsons of Hiranyakashipu took birth in the womb of Devaki, they were transferred by the arrangement of Yogamaya.
Now Vishwanath Chakravarthi Thakur, Sridhar Swami and the great commentaries of Srimad Bhagavatam explains that originally they were the six sons of Marichi. Marichi represents the mind and these six sons represent the rebellious tendencies of the mind, the demoniac propensities of the mind – kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsara. Lust, anger, greed, envy, pride and illusion. Devaki, her womb represents Bhakti or devotion. Rupa Gosvami explains:
anyabhilashita-sunyam
jnana-karmady-anavritam
anukulyena krishnanu-
silanam bhaktir uttama
. That real Bhakti or pure Bhakti is without any tinge of any karma or jnan. Pure Bhakti it was without any of these tendencies of the six enemies. Karma mishra Bhakti , jnana mishra Bhakti . Such a person cannot understand in truth the transcendental appearance of Krsna. Krsna does not appear in the womb of such a devotee, as we are reading here from the Bhagavatam, only a pure devotee, only that person who has conquered these six enemies, so Devaki’s womb representing Bhakti, first these six enemies had to be killed, the enemies born of the mind before Krsna, before her womb was fit for Krsna to appear within. So in this way the demigods as well as Narada Muni, he knew that these saintly persons because of their rebelliousness and their offensiveness they have become materialistic and demoniac and after they killed they can be liberated and be brought back eventually to their transcendental position. So actually by Narada telling Kamsa, “that you should all those sons because you don’t know in which one Krsna will come”. He was actually showing His great mercy upon those six children. And of course, Kamsa he did not know that he was doing them great service. Sometimes we must understand that there is a deeper purport that what we see with our eyes. Our nature is we see everything in a superficial way but underlying everything within this world in the life of a devotee is the will of Krsna, is the plan of Krsna and His plan is always good ultimately. If we just live according to that plan with direction from the great souls. So we must somehow or other destroy these six enemies within our hearts only then Krsna appears within our lives. So after these six children were killed by Kamsa, then Baladev, Lord Balaramji appeared within the womb of Devaki. He was personally sent there to prepare the way for Krsna, to make Devaki’s womb after giving birth to six demons and casting them out, Balaram’s job was to make that womb a very comfortable and suitable place for his Lord and master Krsna to appear. Balaram is the original guru. The spiritual master who is His representative teaches us, teaches us how to kill these six enemies of lust, anger, envy, pride, greed and illusion but even after they have extinguished in our heart still we require the help of the spiritual master to prepare our mind, to prepare our consciousness in such a way that it is a pleasing place for Krsna to appear. So Balaramji prepared Devaki’s womb very nicely and then he was transferred to the womb of Rohini, who is actually his eternal mother and then Krsna appeared within the womb of Devaki. When he appeared, Devaki became effulgent, so beautiful, in fact the whole prison cell became so lit up with such a beautiful light and aura . Devaki herself became the embodiment of such beauty that Kamsa and everyone knew now Vishnu has appeared .They were simply waiting for the moment when they will have to face to face meet with the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Janmashtami means not just the historical, astrological time when Krsna did appear within this world but it means to us that we should understand the process by which Krsna can appear within our own lives. We must purify our hearts,
bhaktya mam abhijanati
yavan yas casmi tattvatah
tato mam tattvato jnatva
visate tad-anantaram
Unless our hearts are pure we cannot understand Krsna’s appearance, we cannot understand His activities, and we cannot be free from suffering. We can take to a religion, we can affiliate with a particular congregation, we can perform many rituals but ultimately we must purify our hearts that is the whole purpose of the association of devotees. It is the actually only purpose of taking to a process of religion or performing any ritual or doing any sadana, to become pure. We should not think that religion is simply meant to live a better life in this world, factually you will get that if you live religiously you will get a better life in this world. Abrahma bhuvana loka purnar_________ na vidyate. But whatever nice arrangement you make in this world will culminate in death, old age, disease, you cannot avoid it. Real religion is to reawaken our eternal consciousness and that comes through purification of the mind, purification of the heart, it comes through unalloyed, unmotivated devotion to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. We do not want to show off, because what you think Krsna is impressed by what we can do, by how much money we can give, by how many austerities we perform, by how many days we can fast, by how many hours we can stand on the tips of our toes, by how long we could stand on our heads, by how wonderfully we could chant mantras, by how much could memorize scriptures, we do these things not to be recognized. We do these things to become purified. When we are purified, when we do it with humility and sincerity, so this is what real religion means. It is not just like having a pass, that “I am a Christian, I am Jew, I am a Muslim or Jain or Parsi or a Buddhist or a Hindu, that’s what religion is today. “I go to this church and you go to that church, mine is nicer than yours”. It is not the purpose of religion, purpose is to purify our hearts, it is a process by which we can attract the mercy of the Lord and Krsna is only attracted to purity, He is only attracted to humility, He is only attracted to sincerity. So that is why Srila Prabhupad insisted and all the great acaryas insisted that you must follow these four regulative principles: No lllicit sex, no intoxication, no gambling, no meat eating, this is essential. Because that’s we are doing our sadana, we are becoming purified. If you engage in these activities or other such material activities, you will just further pollute yourself. We want to kill these enemies; we don’t want to give them strength. Every time you give in to your religious activities, you are giving the enemies within your mind greater strength and longevity and they will conquer you. Therefore with the Holy name which is the weapon within this age of Kali Yuga that Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu has given to everyone. Who accept the Holy name must destroy these enemies from within and without and with the association of devotees, hearing the transcendental names, pastimes and activities of the Lord. We surround ourselves, our intelligence our mind by protection from the device means by which these enemies are always trying to drag our intelligence away. So it is necessary that we learn the proper process of associating with devotees, which is simple, to hear from them, to serve them and to be humble ; not to criticize but to chant and to dance with them.
Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.
And we don’t want any prestige amongst them. We don’t want to show off what we can do to anyone, we simply want to do the best we possibly can for purification. Our sadhana must be very strict. If you want to be purified, it is a process given by the Lord, through his devotees.Take to the process sincerely . True religion is to become selfless, to become a servant. Ultimately Krsna took birth and in Mathura Krsna killed Kamsa. When he was living in Dwaraka many years later, Devaki his beloved mother worshipped him because she knew that Krsna was the Supreme Personality of Godhead. She understood his inconceivable powers ,but still she had so much affection for her previous six sons who had been killed by Kamsa. I guess it is human nature that a mother never forgets a child throughout her life even if that child dies. And even great saintly purified devotees like Devaki still had that natural motherly loving attitude. So she requested Lord Sri Krsna and Balaramji that “I have heard that the son of your Guru Sandipani Muni who died long before you brought him back to life and brought him back to your Guruji ,Can you also bring my six sons back to me”. So Krsna went to Sutala loka, He knew exactly where to find them that is the abode of Bali Maharaj. Bali Maharaj worshipped the Supreme Personality of Godhead with great grandeur and opulence and then he offered himself that “I am your eternal servant how can I serve you” .Krsna and Balaram said: “Please our Mataji wants those six sons back”. So he said: “Yes, here they are”. So Krsna brought them back to Dwaraka and although this was many long years after their birth, Devaki when she saw them and when she touched them she became so overwhelmed with motherly affection that milk started to flow from her sacred breasts and she took each of those six sons and fed the milk from her breast and upon tasting that milk each of those sons were liberated and became completely transcendental purified souls and returned to the planet of great saintly persons from where they had originally fallen. When Krsna took birth in the prison of Kamsa, he appeared with four arms decorated as the Lord of Vaikunta.He told Vasudev that “take me to Gokul Dham and bring me to the house of Nanda and Yasoda”. Now it was cold that night, it was rainy that night and it was a long way, so Devaki was thinking that: “I should give him some nice milk to nourish him so that my baby child will not be hungry during the long journey to Gokul”, so she fed Krsna with her own milk and because she milked Krsna, the milk from her breast became Mahaprasad. So when these six sons of Marichi were given the chance to drink that milk ,they were nourished by the Mahaprasad of Lord Krsna . By tasting it once, they become completely purified and returned to their original abode. We must always aspire to accept the Prasad of the Lord. By controlling our senses by chanting the Holy names, by associating with devotees and by taking the Lord’s Prasad in all these various forms not only do we conquer the mind but we purify the mind and then the mind becomes our best friend rather than the agent of our worst enemies. Krsna says in Gita: That one who can control the mind, the mind is the best friend but for one who fails to do so the very mind is the worst enemy and the process of purification is to control the mind and the senses. Sarvapadi vinirmuktam tatpar ___bhaktirrchati. We have been given such a wonderful method of controlling the mind, purifying the mind, of feeding the mind with Krsna’s Prasad. By seeing the beautiful form of the deities in the spirit of humility and devotion, we are drinking the Lord’s (charanamrit) or Prasad through our eyes record missing by chanting the Holy name with great enthusiasm we are drinking Prasad with our tongues.
Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.
By taking nice Prasad of the deities, we are also receiving Krsna’s Prasad in the form of food stuffs. By hearing the wonderful pastimes of the Lord from the lips of those who are genuinely and sincerely in a mood of humble service to the Lord, by hearing the instructions of Krsna through Gita, through Bhagavatam and by hearing the beautiful sound of the Holy names, we are drinking Krsna’s Prasad through our ears.
Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.
By using our hands to engage in menial services whatever it may be, cleaning the floor, making the garlands, cooking the Bhoga, playing Mrudanga, kartals, lifting our arms in Kirtan
Hare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare.
We are receiving the Lord’s mercy , His Prasad through the process of devotional service through our body. By experiencing the wonderful fragrance of the incense and the flowers that has been offered at the Lotus feet of Sri Radha Gopinath, we are receiving His Prasad through our sense of smell. In this way, this Krsna Consciousness movement of Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu is a movement of simply giving and accepting Prasad.It is for this reason that Srila Prabhupada said that “this process is very simple; we are just chanting, dancing and feasting, just taking nice Prasad”. And by nourishment of this Prasad gradually these six enemies are removed from the mind and our very mind becomes the sanctified place by which Krsna appears and then the true celebration of Janmashtami is revealed to all of us. Thank you very much
Hare Krsna.
Devotional quotes:
- Man is the maker of his own destiny and every aspect of our life is a reaction to what we have done. We are responsible. And this situation of material entanglements is so difficult to overcome that only by the help of God himself is it possible.
- What is the perfection of life? Until we are convinced that this material existence is not our true home, it is not a place with any hope for real happiness, we will not strive for higher realizations, therefore Krsna speaks in Bhagavad Gita in such a way to convince us that the only sensible, intelligent way of life is a way of devotion,
devotion to Him. - Janmashtami means the day that Krsna is born, the day that He appears, God is never born, He is beginning less and endless but just as the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening .The Lord appears to our vision at a certain time and it is called his birth and then He disappears for our vision which is called His disappearance but actually Krsna is actually somewhere shining the light of His causeless mercy through His divine personal presence.
- Brahma is transcendental but the Supreme Lord wanted to show all living beings how careful we have to be because the power of Maya is so strong.Even if such a great soul can fall into illusion by the appearance of Maya, what is our position? Therefore we must be very strict, we must be very cautious and we must take shelter of good association at all times of our life, we cannot be careless, we cannot think that everything is alright, because in this world nothing is ever alright. Maya is imminently there ready to steal your intelligence way. So Lord Brahma who is actually a great soul, who is willing to accept whatever position Krsna wanted to him to put in to teach good lesson to society.
- Devaki, her womb represents Bhakti or devotion.
- Devaki’s womb representing Bhakti, first these (lust, greed, anger, evny, pride and illusion) – six enemies had to be killed, the enemies born of the mind before Krsna, before her womb was fit for Krsna to appear within.
- Balaram is the original guru. The spiritual master who is His representative teaches us, teaches us how to kill these six enemies of lust, anger, envy, pride, greed and illusion but even after they have extinguished in our heart still we require the help of the spiritual master to prepare our mind, to prepare our consciousness in such a way that it is a pleasing place for Krsna to appear.
- Janmashtami means not just the historical, astrological time when Krsna did appear within this world but it means to us that we should understand the process by which Krsna can appear within our own lives. We must purify our hearts.
- Unless our hearts are pure we cannot understand Krsna’s appearance, we cannot understand His activities, and we cannot be free from suffering. We can take to a religion, we can affiliate with a particular congregation, we can perform many rituals but ultimately we must purify our hearts that is the whole purpose of the association of devotees.
- It is the actually only purpose of taking to a process of religion or performing any ritual or doing any sadana, to become pure. We should not think that religion is simply meant to live a better life in this world. Factually you will get that .If you live religiously you will get a better life in this world. But whatever nice arrangement you make in this world it will culminate in death, old age, disease, you cannot avoid it.
- Real religion is to reawaken our eternal consciousness and that comes through purification of the mind, purification of the heart, it comes through unalloyed, unmotivated devotion to the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
- The purpose of religion, purpose is to purify our hearts, it is a process by which we can attract the mercy of the Lord.Krsna is only attracted to purity, He is only attracted to humility, He is only attracted to sincerity.
- So that is why Srila Prabhupad insisted and all the great acaryas insisted that you must follow these four regulative principles: No lllicit sex, no intoxication, no gambling, no meat eating, this is essential. Because that’s we are doing our sadana, we are becoming purifie. If you engage in these activities or other such material activities, you will just further pollute yourself.
- We want to kill these enemies; we don’t want to give them strength. Every time you give in to your religious activities, you are giving the enemies within your mind greater strength and longevity and they will conquer you.
- The Holy name which is the weapon within this age of Kali Yuga that Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu has given to everyone. Who accept the Holy name must destroy these enemies from within and without and with the association of devotees, hearing the transcendental names, pastimes and activities of the Lord. We surround ourselves, our intelligence our mind by protection from the device means by which these enemies (Lust, anger, greed, envy, pride and illusion) are always trying to
drag our intelligence away. - It is necessary that we learn the proper process of associating with devotees, which is simple, to hear from them, to serve them and to be humble and to not criticize to chant and to dance with them.
- Our sadana must be very strict, if you want to be purified, it is a process given by the Lord, through his devotees, take to the process sincerely that is true religion to become selfless, to become a servant.
- We must always aspire to accept the Prasad of the Lord. By controlling our senses by chanting the Holy names, by associating with devotees and by taking the Lord’s Prasad in all these various forms not only do we conquer the mind but we purify the mind and then the mind becomes our best friend rather than the agent of our worst enemies.
- The process of purification is to control the mind and the senses.
- We have been given such a wonderful method of controlling the mind, purifying the mind, of feeding the mind with Krsna’s Prasad. By seeing the beautiful form of the deities in the spirit of humility and devotion, we are drinking the Lord’s (Prasad through our eyes), by chanting the Holy name with great enthusiasm we are drinking Prasad with our tongues.
- By taking nice Prasad of the deities, we are also receiving Krsna’s Prasad in the form of food stuffs. By hearing the wonderful pastimes of the Lord from the lips of those who are genuinely and sincerely in a mood of humble service to the Lord, by hearing the instructions of Krsna through Gita, through Bhagavatam and by hearing the beautiful sound of the Holy names, we are drinking Krsna’s Prasad through our ears.
- By using our hands to engage in menial services whatever it may be, cleaning the floor, making the garlands, cooking the Bhoga, playing Mrudanga, kartals, lifting our arms in Kirtan
- We are receiving the Lord’s mercy His Prasad through the process of devotional service through our body. By experiencing the wonderful fragrance of the incense and the flowers that has been offered at the Lotus feet of Sri Radha Gopinath, we are receiving His Prasad through our sense of smell. In this way, this Krsna Consciousness movement of Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu is a movement of simply giving and accepting Prasad – Krsna’s mercy and it is for this reason that Srila Prabhupada said that “this process is very simple; we are just chanting, dancing and feasting, just taking nice Prasad”. And by nourishment of this Prasad gradually these six enemies are removed from the mind and our very mind becomes the sanctified place by which Krsna appears and then the true celebration of Janmashtami is revealed to all of us
Secular Quotes:
- No matter how many wonderful arrangements we make we cannot change the nature of the world, it is a place where there is danger at every step,
- No matter what we have done throughout our whole life, we cannot find even a grain of happiness. This is the world we live in and so many people are trying to avoid these problems but they cannot, it is like swimming in the ocean and trying to avoid getting wet. Is it possible?
- If you are in the ocean, you are wet, here in material existence you are subjected to all sorts of sufferings, if you want to become dry you cannot do it in the ocean, you have to get out of the ocean,
- if you want to be happy, really truly happy and avoid the struggles of pain you have to transcend the material existence, you have become detached which means to get out. But if you are drowning in the centre of ocean what hope do you have of getting out? It’s too deep, it’s too wide and too long, only if someone throws you a life raft and pulls you upon the ship can you get out. Similarly material existence is like an ocean and only by the mercy of the Lord He comes to this world, Krsna Himself enters into ocean of material existence but not like us, He is transcendental to the modes of material nature, He has no karma to receive, He has no desires to fulfill in this world, save and except to throw us the life raft of His mercy and to help to come out.
- But we find that in this age of Kali Yuga practically 99 percent of human population simply will not accept the life raft. Why? Because their hands and their legs, every limb of their body their mind their intelligence is too busy trying to get dry in the ocean.
- People too much materially attached, what sort of abominable atrocities, they are willing to do to protect their own sense gratification.
- Marichi represents the mind and these six sons represent the rebellious tendencies of the mind, the demoniac propensities of the mind – kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsara. Lust, anger, greed, envy, pride and illusion.
- You know someone who gets control the more you get, the more you want, the more you get power and control in this world, the more you feel everything must be controlled by me, we become meticulous, that is human nature, the nature of ego, ahankar. When you have some control over something or someone it is intolerable to loose it, in fact you take offence it is like a disgrace.
- Sometimes we must understand that there is a deeper purport that what we see with our eyes. Our nature is we see everything in a superficial way but underlying everything within this world in the life of a devotee is the will of Krsna, is the plan of Krsna and His plan is always good ultimately. If we just live according to that plan with direction from the great souls. So we must somehow or other destroy these ( Lust, anger, greed, envy, pride and illusion) six enemies within our hearts only then Krsna appears within our lives.
