English
6th June 2019
Nagpur
Hare Krishna!
Blessings to you all who are in this conference! I remember, Anandamayi Radha whose father was just sitting and today we see you chanting, so we are happy. He was not chanting yesterday, he is chanting today. He is one of the participants. We are very happy with this development.
Good morning news to you all. So welcome sir and welcome to you and all the new participants. I am sure they must be inspired, that is why our number has gone up and we have 650 participants today. Target is 700 at the end of this, you know this, we are getting there day by day.
Padmamali is making some special efforts also, to increase the number of participants. Of course, why Padmamali alone? We all have to, yeah? We should be making efforts and endeavors to increase the participants to have more association. More the merrier as they say.
So, the Holy name of the Lord which we chant everyday directs us to the Lord and gives indication of the Lord, implies the Lord that meant Lord’s form also. So, as we say Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, then Lord says, ‘oh! you are chanting My name. This is how I look like and look at Me, take My darshan’ and of course there are pastimes also as we chant.
Hare Krishna, reminds us the pastimes of the Lord. Basically we are talking about the form of the Lord to begin with, reminded us as we chant.
Unfortunately we are engrossed in bodily concept and all that we care and love is our own form or some forms around us, other persons, worldly forms. So,as Kunti Maharani said ‘janma aishvarya sruta srivih’, the living entities, conditioned souls are falsely proud of their janma, the birth, aishvarya, their opulence, their wealth, their studies or even overseas studies, higher studies, education and specially their beauty, their form, the way they look like, the people are intoxicated, this Kunti Maharani said.
Yesterday here in Nagpur, some devotees were sorting out the photographs of my visits of different temples and what I did in this temple, during that visit and there were photos of me worshipping the Deities or doing kirtan melas. And as they were sorting out and they wanted my involvement or my judgment while selecting some of those photos to use for upcoming Vyasapuja festival. And I was seeing how they were inclined to select more of my photos and less of Deities photos and I was expressing my disappointment over this. The photographs of the Deities were so beautiful, out of this world as they say and were enchanting. As I was talking darshan of those Deities, Deities of Radha Govinddev in Noida, Deities of Radha Pandharinath from Pandharpur and like that Radha Damodar in Solapur or even Radha Shyamasundar in Vrindavan like that.
So I had fallen in love with the photos of the Deities more than my own photos. I was not so much interested. And I was contemplating how the beauty of the Lord is eternal as Their form is eternal; while our beauty is temporary. May be it is here today while you are young, some sort of beauty is there, but wait for some more years and you will not even want to look at your face, ugly face or wrinkled face.
I was also reminded of one statement of Prithu Maharaj when he was addressing the citizens and citizens were trying to glorify Prithu Maharaj. But Prithu Maharaj was responding saying ‘why? the glory of the Lord exists, it is here in the present, the glories of the Lord, why you would you like to glorify me? Just be happy! Just be contended glorifying the Lord! Why are you mixing up that glory or diluting that glory with my glory, or talking of or glorifying me. Lord’s glory is enough. It exists, it is here. Just be happy with Lord’s glory and don’t talk of my glory.
So talking of, the body is ever changing, I was looking at the photographs, even me worshipping different Deities, my thought was that, the worshipers keep changing. Now someone is worshipping the Lord, tomorrow someone else will worship, next year or fifth year from now the same Deity will be there, worshipable Deity, worshipful Deity. But there will be different pujaris, worshipers will be different, worshipable would be there forever, hundred years from now, then thousand years from now the Deity the Lord continue to be there, but the worshipers will be changing as their bodies change, their forms change.
Talking about the changing of body, I am sure it is not difficult to understand our body is changing, the change is so gradual, we do not notice the change on day to day basis but if you could go back to 20 years from now then you could look at the form of your body, it is different from the body which you have now. And of course, when you were baby body and your parents had taken photographs of baby body and they are hanging on the walls, you will not recognize. You will wonder who is this one? Is that me really? Because the body has changed, it is so simple thing that the body is ever changing, our bodies are changing.
Some years ago, devotees, they were publishing my article how I came into Krishna Consciousness. They had selected some photographs to be included in that article and there was one photograph of my college days, it was group photo, myself and my other friends. And devotees, the designers said, ‘Maharaj we have selected this photo to go in that article’ and I was looking at that photograph and it took quite some time for me to find out which person from that photograph is myself? Is that me? No! What about this? No, no! I mean it took some time for me to recognize my own form, my own photograph in that photograph.
Some years ago in my Vyasapuja book, devotees had printed a photograph which devotees normally do, devotees worshiping the feet, they call it lotus feet and there was photograph of feet and I took objection, these are not my feet. This is wrong. This is someone else’s feet, may be feet of some other spiritual master and these are not my feet. And there was whole debate going on, whether they are my feet or someone else’s feet. And devotees somehow convinced me. They were right, they were my feet. So the feet are changing and face is changing, heart is changing, body is changing. While all this is changing, the form of the Lord is eternal, eternally constant, never changing. We are ever changing and Lord is never changing.
As we chant Hare Krishna mahamantra, we are reminded of the form of the Lord and that form is sat-chit-ananda, that form is eternal-sat, chit- full of knowledge, ananda- full of bliss, while our form is asat-achit and nirananda. Our body is temporary, our body is full of ignorance and our body is full of misery. Hence we prefer the form of the Lord, His eternal form we prefer to worship.
HARE KRISHNA HARE KRISHNA
KRISHNA KRISHNA HARE HARE
HARE RAMA HARE RAMA
RAMA RAMA HARE HARE
Srnvanti gayanti grnanti sadhavah
(SB 7.5.23 24)
sadhus are always busy in srnvanti-hearing, gayanti- singing, and grnanti- by accepting the Lord and realizing the Lord that is called God realization, Krishna realization. But at the same time there is self realization-we are spirit souls, that realization also takes place simultaneously. God realization, self realization and our relationship with the God which is attained by the performance of bhakti, by chanting the glories of the Lord.
So, we are also beautiful and we are also eternal as spirit souls, we are parts and parcels of Krishna, children of Krishna. So as Krishna is beautiful, we parts and parcels are beautiful, souls are beautiful, soul is eternal, that we have to realize. Our body is temporary, body is source of misery.
hitva anyathe rupam svarupen vyavasthitih (SB 6.1.58)
Then we give up this ever changing bodies, finally we have nothing to do with this body, tyaktva deham punar janma naiti(BG 4.8)
We give up this present body and we don’t accept another body and we get situated in svarupa, svarupena vyavasthitih, our original eternal form we realize and we get situated in that form. And this is called final or ultimate liberation, that is you realize that you are eternal form and that eternal form keeps serving the lotus feet of the Lord all the time to come. And then there is Lord’s form, then we have our spiritual form, spiritual personality and that spiritual personality keeps serving the Lord and attain eternally. From materiality we attain eternality as we chant Hare Krishna Hare Krishna!
Of course we don’t have to wait till we go back to spiritual sky and serve the Lord. There is also situation, sthiti called ‘jivan mukta ca uchyate,’ we also start serving the Lord here and now. In this world and in this body we spirit soul could be active, be interactive with the Lord through devotional service. And that is what we do by the nine processes of devotional service, navavidha bhakti.
Srila Prabhupada has given us engagements for 24 hours of the day. We are expected to serve Krishna in this body in this world Person who serves is a soul, body is just an instrument. Soul is serving, soul is chanting, soul is worshipping, soul is surrendering, ‘atmanivedanam.’
Body just goes along and then the so called body also gets spiritualized as soul is serving the Supreme Soul.
Okay, stay busy 24 hours till we get together again next day.
Hare Krishna!